


mi 















LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. 

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UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 



Homer in Chios. 



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1/ 

DENTON J. SNIDER. 



X 

JUL ./ 

ST. LOUIS. 

SIGMA PUBLISHING CO., 

210 PINE STREET, 

1891. 






\ 



Entered according to Act of Congress in the year 1891, 

By DENTON J. SNIDER, 

in the office of Librarian of Congress, Washington. 




CONTENTS. 



I. Mnemosyne. 

The Making of the Poet 5 

II. Calliope. 

The Call of the Muse 27 

III. Euterpe. 

The Daughter of Homer 47 

IV. Erato. 

The Stranger of Northland. ... 63 

V. Clio. 

The Travels of Homer 85 

VI. Terpsichore. 

The Pedagogue Chian 113 

VII. Melpomene. 

The Singer of Ascra 131 

VIII. Thalia. 

The Songstress of Lesbos 149 

IX. Polyhymnia. 

The Psalmist of Israel 173 

X. Urania. 

The Marriajre. ...... 201 



I. 

The Making of The Poet. 



(5) 



ARGUMENT. 

HOMEU, the poet, having returned in old age to 
Chios, his birth-place, an island not far from the coast 
of Asia Minor, tells the story of his early life to his 
pupils. Two chief influences ivro%ight up)on his child- 
hood. The first was that of the smith, Chalcon, who 
was both artisan and artist — both vocations in early 
times were united in one mayi — and who revealed to 
the budding poet the forms of the Oods. The second in- 
Huence was that of his mother, Cretheis (^name given 
by Herodotus, Vita Horn). She loas the depository of 
fable andfolk-iore, which she told to her boy in the spirit 
of a poet, and which are the chief materials of his tioo 
great poems. So Homer reaches back to his earliest 
years by the aid of Mnemosyne {memory), who accord- 
ing to Hesiod (Theogon. 915) was the mother of the 
Nine Muses. 



(6) 



«' Fair was the day when I first peeped into the 

workshop of Chalcon, 
Chalcon, the smith, who wrought long ago in the 

city of Chios ; 
Now that day is the dawn of my life, which I yet 

can remember, 
All my hours run back to its joy as my very be- 
ginning, 
And one beautiful moment then let in the light 

of existence. 
Starting within me the strain that thrills through 

my days to this minute ! 
Still the old flash I can see as I peeped at the 

door of the workshop. 
Memory whispers the tale of the rise of a world 

that I saw there 
Memory, muse of the past, is whispering faintly 

the story. 

(7) 



8 HOMER IN CHIOS. 

Chalcon the smith, far-famed in the sun-born 

island of Chios, 
Stood like a giant and pounded the bronze in the 

smoke of his smithy, 
Pounded the iron until it would sing in a tune 

with the anvil, 
Sing in a tune with the tongs and the anvil and 

hammer together. 
Making the music of work that rang to the ends 

of the city. 
Figures he forced from his soul into metal, most 

beautiful figures, 
Forced them by fury of fire beneath cunning 

strokes of the hammer ; 
As he thought them, he wrought them to loveliest 

forms of the living. 
Wrought them to worshipful shapes of the Gods, 

who dwell on Olympus. 
That was when I was still but a child in the home 

of my mother, 
Sole dear home of my life, the home of Cretheis 

my mother I 
Only two doors from his shop with its soot stood 

her clean little cottage. 
Vainly she strove to restrain her clean little boy 

from the smithy, 
But he would slip out the house and away, as 

soon as she washed hiin, 
Off and away to the forge just where the smutch 

was the deepest. 



THE MAIUNG OF THE POET. 9 

How I loved the great bellows puffing its breath 

on the charcoal ! 
And the storm of the sparkles that lit up the 

smithy with starlight ! 
And the hiss of the iron red-hot when thrust into 

water ! 
Greatest man in the world I deemed at that time 

to be Chalcon, 
And his smithy to me rose up a second Olym- 
pus, 
Where the Gods and the Heroes I saw move forth 

into being; 
Him too deemed I divine, like Hephaestus, a God 

in his workshop. 
As he thought, so he wrought — he pounded and 

rounded the metal 
Till it breathed and would move of itself to a 

corner and stand there, 
Till it spoke, and speaking would point up beyond 

to Immortals. 
Bare to the waist and shaggy the breast of the 

big-boned Chalcon, 
As it heaved with an earthquake of joy in the 

shock of creation ; 
Thick were the thews of his arm and balled at 

each blow till his shoulder. 
At the turn of his wrist great chords swelled out 

on his fore-arm. 
One huge hand clasped the grip of the tongs in 

its broad bony knuckles. 



10 HOMER IN CHIOS. 

Th' other clutched hold of the sledge and whirled 

it around by the handle ; 
Shutting his jaws like a lion, and grating his 

teeth in his fury, 
Whirled he the ponderous sledge to hit in the 

heat of the iron ; 
While the veins underneath would heave up the 

grime on his forehead, 
Smote he the might of the metal with all the grit 

of a Titan ; 
Working mid flashes of flame that leaped out the 

belly of darkness. 
Smote he and sang he a song in response to the 

song of his hammer." 

So spake aged Homerus, the bard, as he sat in 

his settle. 
Where grew a garden of fruit, the fig and the 

pear and the citron. 
Grapes suspended in clusters and trees of the 

luscious Domeo-ranate. 
He had returned to his home with a life full of 

light and of learning; 
Wandering over the world, he knew each country 

and city, 
Man he had seen in the thought and the deed, the 

Gods he had seen too ; 
Home he had reached once more, the violet 

island of Chios, 
Blind, ah blind, but with sight in his soul and a 

sun in his spirit. 



THE MAKING OF THE POET. 11 

Youths were standing around him and hearkened 

to what he was telling, 
Bright-eyed youths, who had come to his knees 

from each region of Hellas, 
Homerids hopeful of song, the sons of the genius 

of Homer, 
By the new tale of Troy inspired, they sought to 

make measures. 
Striving to learn of the master to wield the 

hexameter mighty, 
As high Zeus the thunderbolt wields in a flash 

through the Heavens, 
Leaping from cloud unto cloud and leaving long 

lines of its splendor, 
Rolling the earth in its garment of resonant 

reverberation. 
Luminous too was the look of the bo3^s, lit up 

by the Muses, 
Eager they turned to the sage, and begged for 

the rest of his story ; 
Soon into musical words he began again spinning 

his life-thread : 

" Chalcon, the smith, was the maker of Gods 

in the smoke of his smithy ! 
Out of darkness he wrought them, out of chaos 

primeval, 
Striking great blows that lit up the night with 

the sparks of creation 



12 HOMEB IN CHIOS. 

Which would flash from his mind into metal 

through strokes of the hammer. 
Aye, and the maker of me in his Gods he was 

also — that Chalcon; 
He perchance did not know it — the world he 

was mightily making. 
All the Graces he wrought into shape, and loved 

as he wrought them, 
And the Fates he could form in his need, though 

he never did love them, 
But the snake-tressed Furies he banished in hate 

from his workshop. 
I could always forecast what he wrought and 

whether it went well. 
Whether full freely the thought ran out of hi? 

soul to the matter. 
For he would sing at his work an old Prome- 
thean ditty. 
Tuneful, far-hinting it poured from his soul into 

forms of his God-world, 
Strong deep notes which seemed to direct each 

sweep of the hammer, 
Just at the point where a stroke might fiuish the 

work of the master. 
Or a blow ill-struck might shatter a year of his 

labor. 
Then bright notes would well from within as he 

filed and he chiseled, 
Seeking to catch and to hold in a shape the 

gleam of his genius. 



THE MAKING OF THE POET. 13 

Battles he pictured in silver and gold on the 

shield of the warrior, 
Corselets he plaited in proof and swords he 

forged for the Hero, 
Many a goblet he made wreathed round with the 

frolic of Bacchus, 
All the Gods he could fashion to life, in repose 

and in motion. 
Their high shapes he could call from his soul, to- 
gether and singly. 
Call with their godhood down from the heights of 

the radiant Heavens, 
Till the dingy old smithy shot into Olympian 

sunshine. 
Chalcon, Oh Chalcon, me thou hast formed in 

forming Immortals, 
And the song of thy hammer I hear in the ring 

of my measures. 
Oft I can feel thee striking thy anvil still in my 

heart-strokes, 
Which are forging my strains like thee when thou 

smotest the metal, 
Till it rang and it sang the strong tune of the 

stress of thy labor. 
Chalcon, thy workshop went with me in every 

turn of my travel. 
Through the East and the West of wide Hellas, 

through island and mainland. 
Through the seas in the storm, through mount- 
ains rolling in thunder. 



14 HOMEB IN CHIOS. 

With me it went iu my wandering, e'en to the 

top of Olympus: 
Never thy shapes shall fade from the sight of my 

soul, Oh Chalcon." 

Quickly the poet turned round in his seat and 

said to his servant: 
" Come, Amyntas my boy, now bring some wine 

in my goblet, 
Chian wine in my goblet wrought by the cunning 

of Chalcon, 
Which he gave to me once when I sang him my 

earliest measures. 
Round which are dancing the youths at the tast- 
ing the must of the wine-press, 
While the God overgrown with leaves and with 

vines looks laughing; 
Chalcon gave it me once as a prize when I sang 

in his workshop. 
Sang him my earliest measures iu tune to the 

strokes of his hammer." 

Beardless Amyntas, the cup bearer, brought the 
chalice of Chian, 

Choicest of wine, that sparkled and danced on 
the rim of the chalice , 

Draught of the sea, and the earth, and the sun- 
shine together commmgled, 

Liquid poesy, stealthily sung in each drop by the 
wine-god. 



THE MAKING OF THE POET. 15 

Softly the singer sipped oft' the glittering beads 

of the beaker. 
Touching his lip to the line where the rim and 

the brim come together, 
Where flash twinkles of joy and laugh in the eye 

of the drinker. 
That was the essence of Chios distilled from 

the heart of her mountains, 
Tempered hot in the fires that smoulder still in 

the soil there, 
Drawn by the grape into drops that shoot into 

millions of sparkles, 
Generous vintage of Chios, renewing the heart of 

the singer. 

When his thirst he had slaked and his thought 

had returned to his thinking, 
Sweetly he lowered his voice to the note of a mu- 
sical whisper, 
And he bent forward his body as if he were 

telling a secret : 
"Once, I remember, Chalcon was making a group 

of the Muses, 
Sacred givers of song, to be borne to a festival 

splendid. 
Where each singer had in their presence to 

sing for the laurel. 
What do you think he did as I stood with him 

there in the smithy? 



16 HOMEF. IN CHIOS. 

Me he turned into bronze, and put me among the 

Nine Sisters, 
As if I their young brother might be, their one 

only brother ; 
In the center he placed me, aye in the heart of 

the Muses, 
Sweet Calliope kissed me there in the workshop 

of Chalcon, 
Even in bronze I could feel her embrace on that 

day — I now feel it — 
And I could hear her soft breathings that told of 

the deeds of the Heroes. 
Still I can feel, e'en though I be old, the kiss of 

the Muses, 
And at once I respond to their music in words of 

my measures, 
Yielding my heart and my voice to their prompt- 
ings and gentle persuasion. 

good Chalcon, memory keeps thee alive, as I 

love thee ! 
Keeps thee working in me as the maker who is 

the poet ; 
Ever living thou art in thy glorious shapes of 

Immortals, 
Though thou, a mortal by Fate, hast gone to the 

Houses of Hades, 
Whither I too must soon go — the call I can 

hear from the distance, 

1 too a mortal by Fate must pass to the shades 

of my Heroes." 



THE MAKING OF THE POET. 17 

There he paused oa the tremulous thought of a 

hope and a sorrow, 
And the sweet word died away on his lips thrown 

far in the future. 
Hark ! the voice of a song creeps into the house 

of Homerus, 
Filling his home with love and with life to the 

measure of music, 
Fresh from the youth of the heart, the fountain 

of hope everlasting. 
Though unseen the sweet singer, hidden in 

leaves of an arbor. 
All the youths well knew who it was, and stood 

for a moment. 
Bating the breath and bendino; the head to listen 

the better, 
And to quaff each note to the full, for the voice 

that was singinj; 
Poured out the soul of a maiden, the beautiful 

daughter of Homer, 
Whom those boys were more eager to hear than 

to study their verses. 
Aye, more eager to hear the daughter than 

hearken the father. 

He, when the strain had ceased, with a sigh 
broke into the silence : 
*'Ah! the fleet years I how like is that note to 
the note of my mother, 



18 EOMEB IN CHIOS. 

As she hymned to her work or sang me to sleep 

on her pallet I 
Early my father had died, his face I no longer 

remember, 
But the voice which speaks when I speak from 

my heart is always — 
Well do I know it — the voice of my mother, 

Cretheis my mother ! ' ' 

Overmastered a moment by tears, he soon 
overmastered 

All of the weaker man in himself, and thus he 
proceeded ; 

" I was telling the tale of the wonderful work- 
shop of Chalcon, 

Where I saw all the deities rise into form in 
a rapture, 

Coming along with their sunshine to stand in the 
soot of the smithy, 

Happy Olympian Gods who once fought and put 
down the dark Titans. 

Bearing their spell in my soul, I always went 
home to my mother, 

And I would beg her to tell me who were the 
Gods and the Muses, 

All this beautiful folk whom Chalcon had brought 
from the summits. 

From free sunny Olympus down into the smoth- 
ering smithy. 



THE MAKING OF THE POET. 19 

She would begin with a glow in her eyes and tell 
me their story, 

Meanwhile plying the distaff — she never could 
help being busy — 

All of their tales she knew, by the hundreds and 
hundreds she knew them. 

Tales of the beings divine, once told of their 
dealings with mankind. 

When they came to our earth and visibly mingled 
with mortals. 

New was always the word on the tongue of 
Cretheis my mother, 

Though she dozens of times before had told the 
same story. 

Still repeating when I would call for it, ever re- 
peating, 

For a good tale, like the sun, doth shine one day 
as the other. 

What a spell on her lip when up from her lap I 
was looking. 

Watching her mouth in its motion, whence drop- 
ped those wonderful stories ! 

Oft I thought I could pick up her word in my 
hand as it fell there. 

Keep it and carry it off, for my play a most beau- 
tiful plaything. 

Which I could toss on the air when I chose, like 
a ball or an apple, 

Catch it again as it fell in its flight, for the word 
was a thing then. 



20 HOMEB IN CHIOS. ' 

Mark! what I as a child picked up, the old man 

still plays with : 
Words made of breath, but laden with thought 

more solid than granite. 
Pictures of heroes in sound that lasts, when 

spoken, forever, 
Images fair of the world and marvelous legends 

aforetime. 
All of them living in me as they fell from the 

lips of my mother." 

There he stopped for a moment and passed his 

hand to his forehead. 
As if urging Mnemosyne now for the rest of 

the story; 
Soon came the Muse to the aid of the poet, and 

thus he continued : 
" How she loved the songs of old Hellas, and 

loved all its fabling ! 
Well she could fable herself and color her speech 

with her heart-beats. 
I have known her to make up a myth which 

spread through all Chios, 
Thence to island and mainland wherever Hellenic 

is spoken. 
Once I heard far out by the West in a town of 

Zakynthus, 
At a festival one of her lays, which I knew in 

my cradle, 



THE MAKING OF THE POET. 21 

Sung by the bard of the town as his guerdon of 

song from the Muses. 
Ana now let me confess, too, my debt, the debt 

of my genius ! 
Many a flash of the fancy is hers which you read 

in my poems, 
Many a roll of the rhythm, and many a turn of 

the language, 
Many a joy she has given, and many a tear she 

has dropped there. 
Merciful sighs at the stroke of grim Fate on the 

back of the mortal — 
All are remembrances fallen to me from the lips 

of my mother." 

For a moment he ceased, till he gathered his 

voice into firmness, 
Smoothing the tremulous trill that welled from 

his heart into wavelets, 
Smoothing and soothing the quivering thoughts 

which Memory brought him : 
<'Hard was her lot, she had to work daily 

through Chios by spinning, 
For herself and her boy she fought the rough 

foes of existence, 
Making her living by toil that flew from the tips 

of her fingers, 
Deft and swift in the cunning which gives all 

its worth unto labor. 



22 HOMEB IN CHIOS. 

Yet more cunning she showed in spinning the 

threads of a story 
Till they all came together forming a garment of 

beauty, 
Than in twirling the distaff and reeling the yarn 

from the sj)indle. 
But she too, my poor mother, was laid in the 

earth, as was fated, 
For the Fates span out the frail thread of her 

life at their pleasure." 

Here again the old man made a stop with a 

gaze in his features 
As if prying beyond to behold the unspeakable 

secret ; 
But he came back to himself with a joy in his 

look and continued : 
" It was she who gave me the love and the lore 

of the legend, 
Training my youth to her song which throbbed 

to the best of the ages — 
All the great men of the Past and great women, 

the mothers of Heroes. 
Do you know it was she who first told me the 

story of Thetis — 
Thetis the Goddess-Mother, whose son was the 

Hero Achilles ? 
Tenderly told she the tale of the boy who was 

born to do great things, 



THE M AKIN a OF THE POET. 23 

Who from his birth had in him the spark divine 

of his mother, 
Though he had to endure all the sorrow of being 

a hero, 
Suffer the pang that goes with the gift of the 

Gods to a mortal. 
Then in a frenzy of hope she would clasp me 

unto her bosom. 
Dreaming the rest of her dream in the soft in- 
spiration of silence, 
Yet you could see what it was by the light that 

was lit in her presence. 
See it all by the light of her soul that shone from 

her visage. 
Once in her joy she arose with her arms out- 
stretched mid her story, 
Showing how Thetis arose from the deeps in a 

cloud o'er the billow, 
That she, the Goddess, might secretly take her 

son to her bosom. 
To impart what was best of herself — the godlike 

endurance — 
And to arouse in him too the new valor to meet 

the great trial. 
O fond soul of my mother, how well that day 

I remember, 
When thou toldest the tale of the bees that flew 

to my cradle. 
Dropping out of the skies on a sudden along with 

the sunbeams, 



24 HOMEB IN CHIOS. 

Humminof and buzzing; throuo^h all of the house 

as if they were swarming, 
Till they lit on my lips as I slept but never once 

stung me, 
Never stung thee, though running around in thy 

fright to defend me, 
Smitino; and slashinoj with stick or with ras or 

whatever came handy, 
Scorching at last their leathery wings with their 

own waxen tapers ! 
But ere they flew, in spite of the lire and fight of 

the household, 
They had left on my lips their cells of the clear- 
flowing honey, 
Honey clear-flowing and sweet, though bitter the 

struggle to give it; 
Even the bees had to pay for giving the gift of 

their sweetness. 

Then wert thou happy, Cretheis, then wert thou 
sad too, my mother, 

Pensive, forethinking afar on what the God had 
intended. 

Who had sent the dumb bee to speak as a sign 
unto mortals. 

What thy son was to do and endure flashed into 
thy vision. 

Double that flash of the future, joyful, sorrow- 
ful also, 



TEE MAKING OF THE POET. 25 

And thou didst say to thyself and the God, bend- 
ing over to kiss me: 

' Let it fall — the lot of his life ; I feel what is 
coming : 

He must distil from the earth into speech all the 
sweetness of living, 

He must pour from his heart into song all the 
nectar of sorrow ; 

Let it fall — the lot of his life; though hard be 
the trial, 

Always there will be left on his lips the hive of 
its honey.' " 



II. 



The Call of The Muse. 



(27) 



ARGUMENT. 

Homer now tells the third chief influence lohich helped 
maJce him a poet. This influence was the bard of the 
town, Ariston, who sang on the borderland betiveen 
East and West, but iwisnot able to sing of the great con- 
flict between Troy and Greece. It was Ariston loho 
suggested this theme to Homer, and bade the youth go 
out to the sea-shore, where was the cave of the Muses, 
and listen to the voice ivhich woidd speak to him there. 
Calliope, the epic Muse, appears to him, tells him what 
he must do and suffer, and iyispires him with his great 
vocation. He goes home to his mother and tells her 
what the Muse has said to him; his mother after a short 
iyiternal struggle, bids him goat once andfolloio the call 
of the Muse. 



(28) 



Thus to the whisper of fleeting Mnemosyne, 

mother of Muses, 
Homer was yielding his heart and shaping her 

shadowy figures. 
While he was speaking, rose up the roar of the 

sea in the distance, 
Which an undertone gave to his measures, mighty, 

majestic. 
Wreathing the roll of its rhythm in words of the 

tale he was telling, 
Giving the musical stroke of its waves to the 

shore of the island, 
Givino; the stroke for the song to the beautiful 

island of Chios. 
All the sea was a speech, and spoke in the lan- 
guage of Homer, 

(29) 



30 HOMER IN CHIOS. 

Aye, the iEgean spoke Greek, and sang the re- 
frain of great waters, 

All the billows were singing that day hexameters 
rolling. 

Rolling afar from the infinite sea to the garden 
of Homer. 

Stopped in the stretch of his thought the poet 

lay back in his settle. 
Seemingly lost in the maze where speech fades out 

into feeling ; 
He was silent awhile, though not at the end of 

his story. 
Aged and blind he was now, recalling the days 

of his boyhood. 
When he saw all the world of fair forms, as it 

rose up in Hellas, 
Else from the hand of the smith and rise from 

the lips of his mother. 
Saw too himself in the change of the years be- 
coming the singer. 

Soon spake a youth at his side, it was the best 

of his pupils. 
Called Demodocus, son of Demodocus, Ithacan 

rhapsode. 
Who belonged to an ancestry born into song from 

old ages : 
" Did you have no bard of the village, no teacher 

of measures. 



THE CALL OF THE MUSE. 31 

Who could melt the rude voice of the people to 

rhythm of music? 
Men of that strain we have in our Ithaca, they 

are my clansmen. 
Still I follow the craft, and to thee, best singer, 

I come now, 
That I be better than they, far better in song 

than my fathers." 

Here he suddenly stopped and glanced out into 

the garden. 
For there flitted an airy form of a maid in the 

distance, 
Going and coming amid the flowers — the 

daughter of Homer, 
Whom Demodocus loved and sought as the meed 

of his merit. 
He would carry away not only the verse of the 

master. 
But would take, in the sweep of his genius, also 

the daughter. 
Yet the maiden held off, declaring the youth was 

conceited. 

But the father in words of delight replied to 

his scholar: 
*' Well bethought ! a good learner! thou thinkest 

ahead of the teacher ! 
Just of the bard I was going to speak, he rose in 

my mind's eye 



32 liOMEE IN CHIOS. 

Suddenly with thy question — the face and the 
form of Ariston. 

Every day I went to the place of the market to 
hear him — 

Deep-toned Ariston, the singer of praises to Gods 
and to Heroes, 

Chanting the fray and the valorous deed in the 
ages aforetime, 

While the crowd stood around in reverent si- 
lence and listened. 

He was the bard of the town, he knew what had 
been and will be. 

Knew the decree of Zeus and could read it out of 
the Heavenc, 

Knew too, the heart of man, and could tell every 
thought in its throbbing. 

At the festivals sang he through all of the ham- 
lets of Chios, 

He was the voice of the isle, the mythical hoard 
of old treasures ; 

Song and story and fable, even the jest and the 
riddle — 

All were his charge and his choice, by the care 
and the call of the Muses. 

High beat his heart as he poured out its music 
singing of Heroes, 

Every word of his voice was a tremulous pulse- 
beat of Hellas, 

Doomf ul the struggle he saw in the land and fate- 
ful its Great Men. 



TEE CALL OF THE MUSE. 33 

Often he sang the sad lot of Bellerophon, hoio 
of Argos, 

Who once crossed to the Orient, leaving the 
mainland of Europe, 

Quitting his home in the West for the charm of 
a Lycian maiden, 

Daughter fair of the king who dwelt by the ed- 
dying Xauthus. 

Many a demon he slew, destroying the shapes of 
the ugly, 

Savages tamed he to beautiful law, and the law, 
too, of beauty. 

Monsters, Chimeras, wild men and wild women 
he brought to Greek order, 

Amazons haters of husbauds, and Solymi mount- 
aineers shaggy. 

Rut the Hero, for such is his fate, sank to what 
he subjected. 

In the success of his deed he lapsed aud fell under 
judgment. 

Hateful to Gods is success, though much it is 
loved by us mortals, 

Victory is the trial, most hard in the eud to the 
victor. 

Such was the strain of Ariston, here on the 

borderland singing 
Where two continents stand and look with a scowl 

at each other 
Over the islanded waters, ready to smite in the 

struggle. 



31 HOMER IN CHIOS. 

Every Greek in our Chios then heard Bellcro- 

phon's echo, 
llcurd in the deep-sounding name of the Hero an 

echo that thrilled him, 
Felt in his bosom the reverberation of Bellero- 

phontes, 
For he could find in himself the same peril of 

lapsing from Hellas, 
Sinking to Asia back from the march of the world 

to the westward." 

Sympathy touched in its tenderest tone the 

voice of Homerus, 
As his words sank down at the end of the line to 

a whisper, 
Then to a silence, the silence of thought, which 

spoke from his presence. 
What was the matter with Homer, and why that 

shadow in sunshine? 
Did he find in his own Greek soul a gleam of the 

danger? 
Did his poetical heart then enter the trance of 

temptation ? 
He must respond to the passion, aye to the guilt, 

in his rapture. 
He must glow with the deed of the Hero, even 

the wrongful. 
Never forgetting the law, and sternly pronounc- 
ing the judgment. 



THE CALL OF THE MUSE. 35 

Soon he rallied and rose, and his voice returned 

with his story : 
" Well I knew tlie old man and eagerly stored up 

his treasures, 
Aged Ariston loved me, and made me his daily 

companion, 
I was his scholar, perchance, as ye are now in my 

training. 
Once in a mutual moment of freedom I ventured 

to ask him: 
' O my Ariston, sing me to-day the new song 

of our nation, 
Born of the deed, the last great deed we have all 

done together, 
All the Hellenes have done it, methinks, in the 

might of one impulse, 
Fighting our destiny's fight to possess and pre- 
serve the new future. 
Saving the beautiful woman and saving ourselves 

in her safety ; 
That is the deed of Troy and its lay of the Hero 

Achilles ! 
Seek not so far for an action when near in thy 

way is the greatest.' 

Thus I spake, and his face on the spot turned 
into a battle. 
* Ah ! ' he replied ' too near me it lies, just 
that is the hindrance ! 



36 HOMEE IN CHIOS. 

I must leave it behind to another, for I cannot 

touch it; 
Still my heart is cleft by that terrible struggle 

asunder, 
Wounded I was in the strife, remediless still I am 

bleeding. 
Cureless I feel it to be — that wound of the 

Greeks and the Trojans ! 
I was on both sides during the war, and yet upon 

neither, 
Standing aloof from each, yet standing with one 

and the other, 
With father Priam of Troy as well as with Greek 

Agamemnon — 
Tossed to this part or that, and torn into shreds 

by the Furies; 
Greeks had my brain on their side, the Trojans 

had hold of my heart-strings ; 
With that breach in my soul, how could I make 

any music? 
I cannot stand the stress, the horrible stress of 

the struggle 
Always renewed in my song whose every word is 

a blood-stain. 
But hereafter the man will arise who is able to 

sing it, 
Healing the wound in himself and the time, 

which in me is unhealing; 
One shall come and sing of that mightiest deed 

of the Argives, 



THE CALL OF THE MUSE. 37 

He shall arise, the poet of Hellas — the man hath 

arisen 
Who will take it and mould it and make it the 

sonsi: t)t' the ao:es. 
Youth, be thou singer of Troy and the war for 

the beautiful Helen, 
Sing of the Hero in wrath, and reconciled sing 

of the Hero ! ' 

Thus spoke Ariston the bard ; what a life he 
started within me ! 

Chaos I was, but the sun of a song had smitten 
the darkness. 

And my soul bore a universe, with one word as a 
midwife. 

That was the word of the poet, who spoke as 
the maker primeval, 

Calling the sun and the earth from the void, and 
the firmament starry. 

Always welfare he brought to the people who 
hearkened his wisdom. 

And he was ever alive with the thought of bring- 
ing a blessing, 

Climbing the height of the highest Gods, where 
dwells freedom from envy. 

After deep silence, the mother of good, he sol- 
emnly added: 

' Now is the moment to seek the divinity's 
sign for thy calling. 



38 HOMEB IN CHIOS. 

Godlike the token must be, for of Gods is the 

breath of the singer ; 
Go to the grot of the sweet-voiced Muses down 

by the sea-side 
Wliere old Nereus scooped out of stone his son- 
orous cavern, 
Sounding the strains of a \yre that is played by 

the hands of great waters. 
As they incessantly strike on the sands and the 

shells and the rock walls, 
Reaching out from the heart of the sea for a 

stroke of their fingers, 
Just for one stroke of their billowy fingers, then 

broken forever, 
Playing the notes of a song that can only be 

heard by a poet. 
There thou wilt hear, if it also be thine, the voice 

of the Muses, 
Who will give thee their golden word and the 

high consecration ; 
But if it be not within thee already, they will be 

silent, 
Silence is the command of the God to seek them 

no further ; 
Then thou wilt hear in their house by the sea but 

a roar and a rumble, 
But a roar and a rumble of godless waters in 

discord ; 
Wheel about in thy tracks, perchance thou wilt 

make a o-ood cobbler.' 



THE CALL OF THE MUSE. 39 

Not yet cold was the word when I started and 

came to the cavern, 
Set with many a glistening gem overhead in the 

ceiling, 
Decked with sculpture of stone cut out on its 

sides by the Naiads, 
Making a gallery fair of the forms of the Gods 

of the waters, 
Round whose feet mid the tangle and fern were 

playing the mermaids, 
Smiting the wine-dark deep, as they dived from 

the sight of the sea-boys. 
Smiting the blue-lit billows above into millions 

of sparkles, 
Into millions of cressets that lit up the cavern 

like starlight, 
Secret cavern of love for the nymphs, the watery 

dwellers, 
Echoing music afar of the kiss of the earth and 

the ocean. 
Well I knew the recess for often before I had 

been there, 
Oft I had heard the report that told of the sil- 
very swimmers, 
Told of the maidens and youths who loved f;tr 

under the billows. 
Loved one another far under the billows and sang 

the sweet love song, 
Swimming around in the grots and the groves of 

deep Amphitrite, 



40 HOMEB IN CHIOS. 

Or reclining to rest on the couch of the pearl or 
the coral. 
There I had seen in the sunset the car of hoary 
Poseidon, 

Skimming across the wave with his train to his 
watery temple 

Over the golden bridge of the sunbeams that lay 
on the ripples, 

Bridge that lay on the ripples ablaze in the sheen 
of Apollo, 

Spanning the stretch of the sea from Chios away 
to the sundown. 
There I had seen old Proteus, changeful God of 
the waters, 

Forming, transforming himself, the one, into 
shapes of all being. 

Into the leaf-shaking tree and into the shaggy- 
maned lion, 

Creeping reptile, blazing fire, and flowing water ; 

Still I saw him, the one and the same, under- 
neath all his changes. 
There I had seen the beautiful Nereid, daugh- 
ter of Ncreus, 

Chased by the sinuous Triton, the man of the sea 
in his passion. 

Who would snort in his fury whenever the mer- 
maid escaped him. 

Spouting the foam of his rage up into the face 
of the heavens, 



THE CALL OF THE MUSE. 41 

Eising and shaking his billowy curls and blowing 
his sea-horn. 

There I lay down on a pallet of stone and slid 

into slumber, 
While I was sleeping, stood up before me a troop 

of fair women, 
Nine of them, sisters who sang in a circle, they 

were the Muses, 
Singing along with their mother, Mnemosyne, 

who was the tenth one, 
Who would always give them the hint of tlie 

matter and music, 
Looking backward she gave to the Muses the 

boat of the present. 
Soon they arose into beautiful shapes from the 

strains of the cavern. 
Quite as once I had seen them arise in the 

smithy of Chalcon, 
Taking divinity's form in the strokes of his 

dexterous hammer. 
One of them stepped from the group, alto- 
gether the tallest and fairest, 
And she kissed me; it was Calliope who in the 

cavern 
Gave me again the sweet kiss that I felt in 

the smoke of the smithy; 
But her lips began moving with words in the 

twilight of dreamland, 



42 EOMEB IN CHIOS. 

And with a smile stie stretched out her hand and 

spake me her message : 
' Hail, O son of Cretheis, doubly the son of thy 

mother, 
Son of her mythical soul and son of her beautiful 

body. 
Hearken, dear youth, to our call, for thou hast 

been chosen the master. 
Thee we endow with all of our gifts of speech 

and of spirit, 
But take heed of the warning, henceforth be ready 

to suffer ; 
Mark it ! alono; with each o-ift the Gods have a 

penalty given, 
For each good that they grant unto mortals, 

strict is the payment; 
Not without toil is the gift of the Muses, not 

without sorrow ; 
Nay, a Fury is thine, called Sympathy, rending 

thy bosom, 
Making the fate of the human thine own in the 

song which thou singest ; 
Into the stroke of thy heart we have put each 

pang of the mortal , 
Which will throb and respond in a strain to the 

cry of the victim ; 
Answer thou must in agony every twinge of his 

torture, 
Pass through his sorrow of soul, and leap with 

the sting of his body ; 



THE CALL OF THE MUSE. 43 

And when he goes down to death, thou living 

must go along with him, 
Go to the uttermost region beyond the line of 

the sunset, 
Living descend to the dead and speak in the 

Houses of Hades. 
Now thou must wander; thy path runs over 

each mountain of Hellas, 
Over the river and plain to the site of each ham- 
let and city, 
That thou see all its people and hear them tell 

their own story ; 
Not till then art thou fitted to sing the great song 

of Achsea. 
First to Troy thou must pass and look at the 

plain and the ruins. 
Thou wilt hear on the air the fierce clangor of 

arms in the onset. 
Hear the groans of the wounded, the shouts of 

the victor and vanquished. 
Hear the voice of the graves by the shore of the 

blue Hellespontus. 
Still the ghosts of the dead arc fighting, will fight 

there forever ! 
Catch the fleet flight of their words in thy strain, 

in its adamant fix them, 
Make adamantine the speech of the spectres by 

rolling Scamantler. 
Also the Gods thou must see descending from 

lofty Olympus, 



44 HOMER IN CHIOS. 

Aiding one side or the other, ins})iring this hero 

or that one, 
Na}^ they must fight on Olympus, the Gods 

must have too a battle, 
But forget not omnipotence — high above all of 

them Zeus sits. 
'Tis our vision we grant thee, to spy out their 

forms in the ether, 
As they flit hither a thought of the mortal, but 

yet a God too!' 

Loftily spoke the grand Muse, when she 
changed to a look of compassion. 

Which made me weep for myself as again she 
began to forecast me : 

' O, the hard law which for good the divine must 
lay on the human ! 

For thy vision celestial the penalty too must be 
given. 

In return for the boon thou must yield thy ter- 
restrial vision, 

Sio;ht at last in old a^^e will l)e weisihed and be 
paid for thy insight. 

Poverty thou must endure on the way for the 
cause of thy poem. 

Thine is to hunger in body and thine to suffer in 
spirit, 

Still kind hands will reach thee a morsel where- 
ever thou singest, 



THE CALL OF THE MUSE. 45 

Kindred souls will speak thee a word of sweet 

recognition, 
Then go further and sing, though at first nobody 

may listen, 
Further and further and sing till the end has been 

sung of- thy journey. 
Hard is thy lot, I warn thee — the lot of the 

God-gifted singer. 
But it cannot be shunned — to shun it were 

death without dying. 
Go now, get thee ready at once, and set out on 

thy travels.' 

Roused by the voice of command I awoke in a 

swirl of the senses, 
Homeward I hastened, reflecting how I might 

break to my mother 
What I had heard in a swound from the Muses 

so fateful, foretelling 
Sad departure, ordaining divinely the long sep- 
aration. 
Great was her joy at the marvelous talc, and 

great was her sorrow, 
Tear was fighting with tear in a war of delight 

and of anguish, 
Till in the masterful might of her heart she rose 

up and bade me: 
* Go my son, start to-day, thou must follow the 

call of the Muses, 



4G HOMEB IN CHIOS. 

Suffer whatever of weal and of woe the Goddesses 

give thee ; 
Thou wast the hope of my life, but ghidly I shall 

thee surrender, 
Follow the call of the Muses, I can still spin for 

a living.' " 



III. 



The Daughter of Homer. 



(47) 



ARGUMENT. 

Wliile Homer is telling to the youths the story of his 
early life, his daughter Praxilla, who has hitherto been 
kept in the background, appears and begs that she be 
allovjed to share in the school and in the gifts of her 
father. She refuses all the allurements of love till this 
right be accorded her. Homer grants her petition, and 
finds in her words a strong note plainly indicating 
the future. Then they all move to the shrine of 
Apollo, and the poet p)rays the God for light witldn, 
and also prays for the God, tuho is still to unfold. 



(48) 



Strong and firm yet tender in tone had spoken 

Homerus, 
Ever the son of his mother and born each day of 

her spirit, 
Merely the thought of her brought back the sight 

to his eyes, though he saw not, 
And to his vision, though shut to the world, her 

shape had arisen, 
Speaking the long and the last farewell as he left 

her to travel, 
Speaking the words which Memory, shyest of 

Muses, had whispered. 

Of a sudden he stopped, borne off by the tide 
of his feelings, 
Out of the region of speech, which died like a 
beautiful music 

4 (49) 



50 HOMEB IN CHIOS. 

Far on the hills, with echoes repeating them- 
selves on his heart-strings, 

As he hearkened that voice which can only be 
heard in its silence. 

Always the poet responds to the lightest touch of 
his poem, 

In it the music he hears, and also the music be- 
yond it, 

For two strains his measures must have, both 
singino; together, 

One of mortals and earth, the other of Gods and 
Olympus, 

One of gloom and of fate, the other of light and 
of freedom. 

Priest though he be at the altar of song, he is also 
the victim. 

And he yields up his heart to the battle of joy 
and of sorrow. 

Homer, sovereign singer, was weaving the 
strands of his story. 

Weaving together the threads of his life as he sat 
in his garden. 

Where, on the path of the sea to the East, the is- 
land of Chios 

Up from the waters throbs to the rise and the 
fall of the billows, 

Being itself but a petrified fragment of sea- 
born music. 



THE DAUGHTEIi OF HOMEE. 51 

Which was sung into stone with its notes at their 

sweetest vibriitioii. 
Over the slant and the summit the fruita2;e is hav- 

ing a frolic, 
Oranges coated with gold and olives sparkling in 

silver. 
Playing in floods of the sun that pour from the 

sky to the ishmd, 
Whose new ardent blood is flowing to juice of the 

wine-press. 
Heart-beats of stormiest stone you can feel every- 
where to the hill-tops, 
Heaving the vehement oai'th till it rises from 

slope into summit, 
While the fiery soil is transmuted to grapes in 

the vineyard, 
Which reveal the red rasje of the God in the 

sparks of their droplets. 
Pulses of passionate air you can breathe every- 
where in the island. 
Lifting the rapturous soul into love of the youth 

and the maiden. 
Which breaks forth into strains in answer to 

valley and mountain. 
Every look is a chorus of sea and of earth and 

of heaven, 
All of the isle is a song as it sways in the sweep 

of its ridges. 
And keeps time to the up and the down of the 
beat of a master, 



52 EOMEB IN CHIOS.' 

Tuning the sea and the land to vast undulations 

of music, 
Notes of the strain that rose from the voice of 

the singer primeval 
When he created the land and the sea and the 

firmament starry. 

In the heart of this musical isle, his birth-place, 

sat Homer, 
And around him stood youths from the east and 

the west of all Hellas, 
In a trance of the Muses carried along by his 

numbers, 
Yielding their souls unto his to be shaped to 

that harmony splendid. 
Nor from that group of fair youths could Eros 

be rightfully absent, 
Eros, the God of Love, had his shrine, as his 

wont is, in secret 
There in the garden of Homer who, though shut 

in his eye-sight. 
Could behold each deity present, however dis- 
guised. 

Suddenly all of the eyes of the youths were 

turned from the singer. 
And to the tune of new measures were shooting 

poetic scintillas. 
Rolling sidelong in fiery joy, yet trying to hide 

it, 



THE DAUQHTEB OF EOMEB. 53 

Flino'ing millions of sparkles over the form of a 

maiden, 
Very beautiful maiden , who entered the gate of 

the garden. 
Out of her hiding she moved, emerging from 

leaves of her arbor. 
Like a Goddess she came, who has sped from the 

heights of Olympus 
Down to the longing earth, to appear the divine 

unto mortals. 
Forward she stepped to the group without stop- 
ping, and came to its center ; 
All of the youths were lighting her path with 

their looks as she passed them. 
Making the twinkle of starlight there in the 

blaze of the sunlight. 
With a reverent glance she touched the lean hand 

of the poet, 
Yet the look of resolve gave strength to her 

face in its sweetness. 
Softly obedience shone just while her own way 

she was going. 
Standing behind him she pressed the bloom of 

her cheek to his forehead, 
Roses of life seemed to suddenly shoot from the 

furrows of wisdom. 
And to her father thus spake Praxilla the daugh- 
ter of Homer, 
While her strong sweet lips gave a kiss which 
sounded heroic : 



54 HOMER IN CHIOS. 

" Father, suffer me also to come to thy knees 

and to listen ; 
I would learn who thou art before thou pass from 

this sunshine, 
Soon thou must go, methinks, with the Days, the 

daughters of Phoebus, 
Go with the beautiful Days far over the sea to 

the sundown. 
I am the daughter of Homer, hardly I know yet 

my father; 
Do not deny me the hope of my soul which of 

thine is begotten. 
Great is my longing to hear of what thou art 

saying and singing ; 
Why should men not share with the women their 

lore and their wisdom ? 
None the less will you have, and we shall gain 

much by your bounty ; 
We shall be worthy of you, and you will receive 

the full blessing. 
Long I have patiently kept in my bower, my 

beautiful bower, 
(>)vered with blossom and branch and filled with 

the fragrance of Nature, 
Which thou nobly gavest me once — it seems long 

ago now — 
Thoughtful the gift was and kind, but to-day I 

can stay there no longer. 
As I listened within it, hidden in leaves and in 

branches, 



THE DAUGHTER OF HOMER. 00 

Wreathed around and around in its flowers and 

clasped in its tendrils, 
I resolved to go forth and to claim my heritage 

also, 
Heritage equal of legend and song which are all 

thy possessions. 
Hear me, O Father ! thy child, I am come to 

know of thy knowledge, 
I am come to thy school to learn if I be the true 

heiress. 
And to say the one Avord which long has been 

ojrowinoc within me. 
Not yet mature, but this day it is ripe and must 

drop from my lips now: 
Child of thy body I am, I seek to be child of thy 

spirit, 
I, not knowing my father, am not the true 

daughter of Homer." 

Mild was the mien, yet strong was the word 

which the maiden had uttered. 
Gentle the note of her voice, suppressing softly 

a quiver. 
Yet betra3nng a wavering line in response to her 

heart-beats. 
Which sank down with her modesty, yet swelled 

up with her purpose. 
Heedful of men in her presence, but of their 

scofling defiant. 



56 HOMER IN CHIOS. 

To her father dutiful, yet her own way she must 
go too. 

All of the youths admired and looked, she re- 
turned not their glances, 
Was there not one whom she in her heart already 

had chosen — 
One of those beautiful youths, the flower of 

Hellas and Asia ? 
See how handsome they stand in a group, as if 

they were God-born, 
Gathered now on Olympus, rejoicing their par- 
ents immortal ! 
Still not a look from the maiden that way ! not 

a glance of sly favor ! 
How can she help it? But not a beam hath she 

dropped there among them. 
Say, has Nature lost her authority over the 

maiden? 
Once revenges were wreaked on the rebel, double 

revenges, 
Love which rejects will feel too the pang of being 

rejected, 
Twofold the wound which Eros inflicts if you tear 

out his arrow. 
Mark how the generous summers of Chios have 

given their bounty, 
Given their hidden command in the warmth of a 

Southern climate, 
But the command is not heard, is defied by the 

daughter of Homer. 



THE DAUGIITEE OF HOMER. 57 

Subtle and sinuous are the retreats in the heart 

of a maiden 
Where she hides herself, unconsciously testing 

the gold there ; 
Labyrinth hopeless it is to dozens of fairest of 

suitors, 
Yet its clew is simple — merely the love of the 

right one, 
When he happens along, as he certainly will, on 

her pathway ; 
Yes, he will come, though we cannot tell when — 

to-day or to-morrow ; 
Thinking or thoughtless, guilty or guileless, lo ! 

he is chosen, 
And the rest, much better perchance, march off 

under judgment ; 
Just he, nobody else, and the reason without 

any reason, 
Sent from above he must be, it is said, yet sent 

by himself too, 
Helped divinely she is, in going the way that she 

pleases, 
Providence brings them together, and both have 

done what they wanted. 
See the two Gods, within and without! they have 

met and arc kissing, 
Eros and Psyche have met and are kissing, the 

spirits immortal. 
Long before the two mortals have tasted the lips 

of each other. 



58 HOMES m CHIOS. 

But not so it runs now in the tale of the 

daughter of Homer, 
Now the law seems changed — and yet we can 

hardly believe it; 
Strange desire she has to share in the lore and 

the legend, 
Firmly refusing to listen to-day to the whisper 

of Eros, 
Who is wont to be hinting to maidens his secret 

suggestion, 
And to speak with his face hid in clouds till he 

dare be discovered. 
Now she will take her part of the gifts from her 

father descended, 
Dimly dreaming perchance that she hereafter 

may need them ; 
She will learn the old songs which treasure the 

wisdom of peoples. 
Learn the story of heroes tried in the failure 

and triumph, 
Learn the story of women, unf alien, fallen, for- 
given, 
Faithful Penelope, dire Clytemnestra, beautiful 

Helen; 
She too will sing, remaining forever the daughter 

of Homer. 

Gently the poet groped for her hand, reaching 
out with his fingers. 



THE DAUGHTEE OF HOMEB. 59 

Found it and laid it in his with a satisfied look, 

then addressed her : 
" Daughter methinks thy voice has suddenly 

changed from thy childhood, 
Yesterday thou weit a girl, to-day thou art wholly 

the woman, 
I can hear in thy tones once more the voice of 

my mother. 
Thine is the voice of Cretheis, when she was tell- 
ing a story, 
Sweet are the turns of thy tongue in talking our 

living Hellenic, 
And yet seeming to speak just to me from a world 

resurrected, 
Building anew out of speech the rainbows of 

youtiiful remembrance. 
But a difference, too, I can hear — thy words 

are the stronger, 
Yes, far stronger are thine than the words of 

Cretheis my mother. 
Who could fable the past and loved antiquit3''s 

custom ; 
Stronger I deem them than Helen's, which held 

in their spell all Achrea. 
They do not dwell in old days, nor do they de- 
lay in the present, 
They belong not here in our Chios, belong not 

in Hellas, 
But reach out to a time and a land somewhere in 

the distance, 



60 HOMER IN' CHIOS. 

Dreamily rising this moment, I see, out the fog 

of the future, 
Faintly lifted to life in the light of the beams of 

Apollo, 
Who has whirled in his chariot over the arch of 

our heavens, 
And, now facing the West, is scanning the far- 
thermost Ocean. 
List ! I bid thee to come when done is the duty 

of household, 
Come when thou wilt and stay when thou canst, 

both now and hereafter, 
Freely unfold what is in thee to all that ever 

thou canst be. 
Travel thou must thine own way of life as thy 

father before thee. 
Be thou child of my spirit, be thou heiress of 

Homer, 
Follow the path of the Sun round the world, and 

that be thy journey." 

Scarce had he uttered the word, when stately 

he rose from the settle. 
Full of the thought he had spoken he shone in 

each line of his visage ; 
Then he moved to the place where stood in his 

garden an altar, 
For, though blind, he knew well the way to the 

shrine of the Light-God. 



THE DAUGHTER OF HOMEB. 61 

After him moved the daughter and youths in 

holy procession, 
Solemn, slow-stepping, while stainlessly white 

fell the folds of their garments ; 
When they had gathered about him and stood in 

a worshipful silence, 
Hopeful he turned to the sky, rolled upward his 

sightless eyeballs. 
Seeking the face of the God that shone as the 

sun in the heavens, 
And he prayed his soul's prayer, with might of 

an instant fulfillment: 
" O Apollo, bearer of all that is good to us 

mortals. 
Bearer of light to the Earth and of sight to the 

soul in thy presence, 
God of the luminous look that darts to the past 

and the future. 
And doth shine on the present forever, creating 

it daily ! 
Shed still over the Earth thy light, though to me 

thou deny it ; 
Build thy arch of pure beams each day round the 

heavens above us. 
Spend thy blessing on others, though I be not 

able to take it ; 
Hold overhead as our lamp and our shield thy 

canopy golden, 
And, as thou risest upon the beautiful world out- 
side me, 



62 IIOMEB IN CHIOiS. 

Rise and illumine the world, the dim world that 

is lying within me ! 
Deity though thou be, for thee also I lift up my 

prayer ; 
Thou unfold in thyself while I too in thee am 

unfolding, 
More and more may thy light be transformed 

from the outer to inner, 
Till thou be risen from godship of nature to god- 
ship of spirit. 
Then through thee may the song that I sing be 

reborn in the ages. 
Ever reborn unto men in the sheen of thy spirit, 

O Light-God!" 

All the youths prayed the prayer of Homer, 

the daughter prayed with them. 
In low tones of devotion that speak to the deity 

present, 
Standing full in the sheen of the sun by the shrine 

of A[»ollo, 
Who from his way in the "West, threw back his 

glances propitious. 
Warming the words of the poet, and making the 

moments all golden. 



IV. 



The Stranger of Northland, 



(63) 



ARGUMENT, 

At this point a stranger appears in the school of 
Homer, not a Greek or Asiatic, but a Barbarian, so 
called, from the far northivest. He has come to learn 
something about Homer, having had some previous in- 
formation from a Greek captive whom he had taken in 
war. The stranger wishes to carry Homer's poetry — 
the lohole of it, and not some fragments — to his people, 
andhand it doton to the future. Meantime Praxilla, 
the daughter of Homer, listens to the story of the stranger 
with an interest never felt before, and she neglects for a 
moment her household duties in her eagerness to see and 
hear him. Homer and the scholars, after trying in vain 
to pronounce the rough gutturals of his name, salute him 
by the Greek title of Hesperion. 



(64) 



Scarce to the God of the Light had they ended 

their [)ovvei'ful prayer, 
And looked u)) from their service divine with a 

sense of their freedom, 
Lo, a stranger arrives, a youth still dusted with 

travel. 
Yet with a glow of new gladness that told of a 

journey completed. 
"Look, who is that?" the scholars were whis- 
pering each to the other, 
" Homerid novel he is, just come from Barbary 

distant ; 
Wonder if he have a tongue in his mouth tiuit 

can trill the Greek accent, 
See but his mantle of motley and garments 

swaddled around him, 

5 (G5) 



66 HOMER IN CHIOS. 

Look at his face and his form, he never was 

born in our Hellas. 
Beautiful still he might be, if he only were 

dressed in our drapery." 

Then they ceased , for the stranger already was 

standing among them, 
Manly in look and lofty in stature and earnest in 

feature. 
Fair was his hair and ruddy his cheek and broad 

were his shoulders, 
Swift was the flash of his eye, it was wild and 

still it was gentle. 
Often it sank to a dream reflecting the blue of 

the heavens. 
Some new sort of a man he appeared to the 

Greek of the islands. 
Taller he stood by the half of his head than any 

one present ; 
At the entrance he stopped and gazed at the 

group for a moment, 
Srait by the sight of what he had suddenly seen 

in an eye-shot ; 
Then he turned and spoke to the poet, slowly 

pronouncing 
Each Greek word in a tone that tingled the ear 

with new music, 
Though it tickled at first the light-brained youths 

to a titter, 
Whispering, jibing, making remarks in the ban- 
ter of boyhood. 



THE STB^iNGEB OF NOETHLAND. 67 

Thus spake the stranger, deliberate, yet inton- 
ing his firmness, 
For a message he had in his heart, and was going 

to tell it : 
'* Far in the region of snow I dwell, whence 

Boreas chilling 
Falls on the sun-loved South with his sword that 

is forged in the Northland, 
Forged out of ice and tempered in blasts from 

the nostrils of frost-gods. 
Fierce is that warrior of winds and like the bar- 
barian ever, 
Who is charmed from his frozen world to the 

warmth and the harvest. 
And descends to your seas with his hordes in a 

whirl and a tempest, 
Mad with your love he smites in his rage and 

seizes your beauty. 
But, Oh Homer, you 1 address, the goal of my 

travels — 
For I deem you that man whom I name by the 

awe of your forehead — 
Do you know your measures have pierced our 

ice builded fortress. 
Warming our clime by their breath and melting 

our hearts to their music? 
Kude is the turn of your words in our speech, and 

dim is the meaning. 
Still it touches our hearts, and to sympathy softens 

our fierceness ; 



68 HOMES IN CHIOS. 

You have made us all feel ourselves a little more 

human, 
When your Hero in wrath relented in pity for 

Priam, 
Ransomed his bitterest foe and comforted sweetly 

the father. 
Northland is starting to thaw in the breath of 

the Southern singer. 
And I am come to reward you alive by telling 

the message." 

Joyful the poet was tuned by the tidings hyper- 
borean, 
Voice from a far off world and promise of much 

that was coming. 
Casting across the Greek landscape a shadow of 

lands in the sunset. 
New were the tones of the tongue, not Doric, 

Aeolic, Ionic, 
Not the turn of the speech that is spoken on 

island or mainland. 
Nothing like it had ever been heard in the city of 

Chios, 
Nothing like it had ever been sung in the strains 

of a rhapsode, 
Music it had of its own, and yet all the words 

were Hellenic, 
Nay, all the words were Homer's, and seemed to 

be drawn from his poems, 



THE STRANGER OF NORTHLAND. 69 

Wondrously tinged with new tints and quaintly 

turned to new meanings. 
Greatl}'' surprised at the sound of the voice spake 

Homer, uprising : 
*' Speak, oh guest, tell how you have learned 

our language of Hellas ; 
Hard it is for the native, harder it must be for 

strangers, 
Cunning it is like ourselves, eluding the grasp of 

the learner, 
In its hundreds of shifts transforming itself like 

old Proteus. 
Then I notice your rhythm to be of my measures 

begotten, 
And some turns of your speech are certainly born 

of my spirit, 
Aye and the sweep of the thought when you 

spoke of the Hero Achilles. 
Well you have heard my song, far better than 

many a Grecian, 
Though a barbarian, you, I can feel, have the 

touch of my kinship. 
Mighty and marvelous is all this, I would never 

have thought it, 
Come now, tell me the story, Oh guest, for great 

is my wonder." 

"That I shall tell you at once," he replied, 
" not long is the story. 



70 HOMEB IN CHIOS. 

What I have spoken to you, I learned from a 

Greek, my own captive, 
Whom I had taken in war, when he came to my 

country's border. 
Trading, plundering, wandering over the world 

for adventure ; 
That was another Ulysses, much-enduring and 

crafty, 
Loving the song and the fable, singing them too 

on occasion, 
Loving the deed and daringly doing on land and 

on water. 
Your Greek earth was too small for the stress of 

his thought and his action, 
Over the border he broke and hunted his prey 

like a lion, 
Knowledge beyond it he sought, and fell into fate 

in his searching. 
How I felt in my bosom the swell and the stroke 

of his spirit! 
When I found what he was, I made him my friend 

and companion, 
Though a slave still in name, he was given my 

love and my bounty ; 
Well he repaid the act; from a prisoner's death 

I had saved him, 
And he saved me in turn from the ignorant death 

of the savage. 
There in the forest your speech I began, I prac- 
ticed it daily 



THE STEANGEB OF NOIiTHLAND. 71 

Till })y his aid I was able to speak it the way you 
now hear me. 

Him I set free as soon as he taught me the lan- 
guage of Homer, 

It is the word of your poem that broke the chain 
of his bondage, 

Mine too it broke at a blow when I said in your 
Greek : * Be free now,' 

And I am sure, it would break every chain of the 
people who spoke it." 

More astonished than ever the poet burst out 
into questions : 

" Why hast thou come to this spot, and how 
didst thou get to our island ? 

Utter again to me here thy broken Hellenic — 
I love it, 

Love it twisted and splintered and broken to ra- 
diant fragments 

Dropping out of thy mouth, yet speaking the 
best that is spoken. 

Say, who art thou, man, and what art thou doing 
ill Hellas?" 

Jubilant Homer asked, but could not wait for 

the answer. 
Asked once more, and that was not yet the end 

of his asking. 
Till the stranger, breaking the lull of a moment, 

responded : 



72 HOMEB IN CHIOS. 

♦' He the Greek whom I spoke of, once called 

you a native of Chios ; 
With that name in my heart, inquiring each step 

I am come now 
Over the land from afar and over the sea in a 

vessel. 
But is it so? I can hardly believe it myself — 

Art thou Homer? 
Tell me, old man, thy name, O speak it but 

once — Is it Homer?" 
" So I was called by my mother, still so I am 

called by the Hellenes, 
Though there be some who deem me not Homer 

but some other person, 
Merely a different man of that name," responded 

Homerus, 
And a sunrise of smiles broke over the seams of 

his features, 
As arose in his thought the pedagogue dwelling 

in Chios, 
Terrible pedagogue, trouncer of boys, the crusty 

Typtddes. 

Then spake the stranger, uplifting himself to 

the height of his stature, 
Far overlooking the heads of the rest of the little 

assembly : 
" Let me now tell you the scope of my travel, 

the hope of my journey ! 



THE STRANGER OF NORTHLAND. 73 

Praised be the Gods! I have reached in safety 

the place of your dwelling, 
Mighty, resistless the need I have felt to see 3'ou 

and hear you, 
Aye, to learn your full song and store it away in 

my bosom. 
Whence the Muses, daughters of Memory, al- 
ways can fetch it. 
I would carry it off to my home far up in the 

Northland, 
Fleeting over the wintery border of beautiful 

Hellas 
Where it reaches beyond the abode of the Gods 

on Olympus, 
To the regions where drinking their whey dwell 

the mare-milking Thracians, 
Over the hills and the valleys away to the banks 

of a river, 
To the stream that is bearing the flood of the 

wide-whirling Istros, 
Still beyond and beyond, still over the plain and 

the mountain, 
Over vast lands to the seas, and over the seas to 

the lands still, 
Through the icicled forest, and through the 

tracts of the frost-fields, 
Still beyond and beyond, still over the earth and 

its circles, 
I would carry your song in my soul to the homes 

of my people 



74 IIOMEB m CHIOS. 

Where the huge arms of the breakers are smit- 
ing the shore of the Ocean, 

Ever beyond and beyond in the stretch of their 
strokes they are strikinir, 

Beating, forever repeating the strokes of the in- 
finite Ocean," 

Both of his arms he outstretched and gazed on 

the sea for a moment ; 
Catching his breath, the stranger returned from 

his look to Ws hearers: 
" Barbarous lands and peoples you call them, and 

truly so call them, 
But in their hearts they are ready, I know, to be 

tuned to your music. 
And to be dipped, once more new-born, in your 

harmony holy. 
Which they will keep forever enshrined in their 

lore and their legend. 
Homer, O Homer, poet of all the nations and 

ages, 
Give unto Barbary now what the Gods have 

given to Hellas." 

Round whirled the stranger, the beat of his 
thought still smiting within him. 

Driven out of himself, he walked at a whisk a 
small circle 

And came back to his stand, as if putting a bodily 
period 



THE ST3ANGEE OF NOBTHLAND. 75 

There to the swcc)) of his utterance swift, but 

his spirit's full gallop' 
He could not rein in at once, and so his words he 

continued : 
" All of your song I would know, the whole 

of it fitted together, 
That Greek captive of mine could only sing me 

the fragments. 
Broken off here and there from the whole — 

most beautiful fragments, 
Which Mnemosyne fleetingly brought him when 

he invoked her. 
But the whole of your song I must have, the 

whole of it shrcdless, 
For the whole is often far more than all of its 

pieces, 
Aye, the whole is all of its pieces, and is the 

whole too." 

Here laughed Homer aloud, yet spake no word 

with his pleasure ; 
What had started the poet who rarely gave way 

to his lauo-hter? 
It was the thought, the comical thought of the 

pedagogue Chian, 
Who was always beating and breaking the song 

into pieces, 
Till he became what he made, became too himself 

but a Crasment — 



76 HOMEB IN CHIOS. 

Terrible frao;ment of man, the trouncer of bovs 

and of verses, 
Terrible pedagogue Chian, the slasher and 

thrasher, Typtodes. 

All of the youths drew closer around him, the 

wonderful stranger, 
Scholar hyperborean, the first that had come from 

the Northland ; 
They received him as one of themselves in the 

school of the master, 
Gone is the scoff and the jibe, and the whisper is 

speaking respectful. 

Also Praxilla was there, the beautiful daughter 

of Homer, 
Hearing the marvelous tale and pondering deeply 

its meaning. 
Sweetly the maiden looked up and smiled at the 

mirth of her father. 
Though she knew not the cause, she knew that 

the stranger had pleased him. 
Her too the stranger had pleased, she thought, 

in pleasing the father. 
Her too the stranger had pleased — she knew not 

what was the reason. 
Not yet brought to an end was the task of the 

day in the household. 
Still she lingered and listened, though hearing the 

call of the kitchen. 



THE STEANGEE OF NOETHLAND. 77 

Nobly erect stands the youth, and towers aloft 

in his stature, 
Brave as a hero he must be to travel alone the 

long journey. 
Loyal the heart in his breast, so true to his Greek 

benefactor ; 
Lofty his soul looks out and full of divine aspi- 
ration ! 
Man with a beard, overtopping the cluster of 

beardless bardlings, 
As great Zeus overtops all the Gods in his inien 

and his power. 
Burst is the bloom of his manhood, still as a man 

he is youthful. 
Weighty his speech drops down with the ring of 

the masterful doer; 
And Praxillathe daughter of Homer still lingered 

and listened, 
Lingered to hear but a word, one more word 

she would catch from the stranger, 
Though again she heard the importunate cry of 

the kitchen. 

Seeing her there he began once more, that son 

of the Northland, 
For he thought she might wish to be told what he 

knew about women : 
" Rude though we be and warriors from birth, we 

are fond of the household. 



78 HOMEE IN CHIOS. 

And we honor the wife who rules with her heart 

in her home life ; 
But, yet more, we honor the woman, for she is 

the healer, 
Ever the merciful healer through the love in her 

nature, 
Healing the soul and the body, and nursing the 

sick and the helpless. 
Aye, yet more, we hold her the seercss, the 

gifted divinely, 
Who has the vision beyond, foretelling the time 

unto mortals." 
And Praxilla still lingered and listened, the 

daughter of Homer, 
Lingered to hear but a word, one more word she 

would hear from the stranger ; 
Louder and louder resounded the dolorous cry 

of the kitchen. 

Then the poet in speech forethoughtful and 

hearty addressed him : 
" Welcome, oh stranger, here is our board with 

its wine and its viands, 
Stay and partake, be refreshed from thy journey 

in body and spirit. 
First pour a drop to the God of the Light, far 

darter Apollo, 
Pray then, for men have need of the God, he will 

answer thy prayer. 



THE STB ANGER OF NOETHLAND. 79 

Take of me all that I am, or was or ever I shall 

be, 
Bear me afar as thou wilt, to thy folk in the 

snows of the Northland, 
Learn all my song and carry it off, the whole, 

not a fragment. 
For no frag-meut can live if torn from its life in 

the body; 
Sing it thyself and let it be sung by the farther- 
most peoples. 
Thine it is as it is mine, if thou only art able to 

sing it; 
In thy words I can feel that thou art the son of 

the future, 
Feel what is coming to me and to mine from the 

world to the westward. 
Welcome O guest, now drink of our wine and 

eat of our viands ; 
Stay — perchance I shall make thee joint heir of 

all my possessions." 

So spake the father in joy, expecting the feast 

to be ready. 
But Praxilla, where is Praxilla, the dutiful 

maiden? 
Still she lingered in spite of herself, and listened, 

and wondered. 
Lingered to catch bnt a word, one more word, 

from the lips of the stranger, 



80 HOMEE IN CHIOS. 

Though her father she heard re-echo the cry of 

kitchen, 
When he spoke of drinking the wine and eating 

the viands. 
Beautiful daughter of Homer she stood there, 

but dutiful also; 
She was restless, and said to herself in reproof, 

still delaying: 
"Surely I ought to be off, I was needed long 

since in my kitchen ; 
What will the household become if left to itself 

in the future? 
Oh, those women, those wonderful women, up 

there in the Northland ! 
That was the tale of a dream, and still I appear 

to be dreaming. 
Thinking myselt far away in the glistening home 

of the frost-gods. 
Thinking myself in a temple of ice on the top of 

an iceberg. 
Woman, now speed from this old Greek world 

and march to the new one ! 
Would he take me along if I perchance would go 

with him? 
That is my mind — and yet I know not whether I 

know it ; 
That is ray mind — beyond the seas and over the 

mountains — 
But I must go — my kitchen, my kitchen — and 

still I delay here — 



THE 8TBANGEB OF NORTHLAND. 81 

Ever beyond and beyond is my mind, on the wings 

of my thinking, 
Over the plain and the mountain, and over the 

border of HelLis, 
Up to the stream that is bearing the flood of the 

wide-whirling Istros, 
Over the river afar to the shore of the further- 
most Ocean, 
Where I can feel the embrace of the waves of the 

earth-holding Ocean, 
There I would stand by the waters — and yet 

even they could not stop me ! 
But away to my kitchen, my kitchen — Oh, why 

do I stay here! " 

Just at that moment the stranger looked over 

the youths round about him. 
But those youths did not mark quite what he was 

warily seeking. 
Even away from the poet he looked and found 

what he searched for. 
Where stood the lingering, listening daughter of 

Homer, Praxilla, 
Who still delayed for a word, one more word 

from the lips of the stranger. 

Then spake the father, breaking into the 
thought of the daughter : 
" Hold ! thy name, O guest, we must know, ere 
we go to the banquet. 



82 HOMEB IN CHIOS. 

We must address thee us one of our own, when 

we sit at the table." 
Slowly the stranger pronounced it, barbarous, 

heavy, rough -throated, 
But those soft-toned Greeks could not speak it in 

spite of their cunning, 
Oft he repeated it for them, but in vain they 

essayed it. 
Rudely its sounds were jolting out their mouths 

in confusion, 
Broken to fragments around on the air flew the 

name of the stranger. 
Then the master spake out, and bade all be silent 

a moment : 
*' Much too old is my voice to be forced to the 

tones of thy language. 
Always it creaks and breaks if strained to the 

subtle adjustment, 
I have sung too much to make any longer this 

discord. 
Hearken to me ! in my tongue I shall name thee 

henceforward Hesperion, 
Son of the Evening, come from the dip of bright 

Melius westward, 
Rising and shining when it is sunset already in 

Hellas. 
That is a name we can sing to right music in 

measure Hellenic, 



TEE STB ANGER OF NOBTHLAND. 83 

List to the word, let us sing it together: Wel- 
come, Hesperiou ! " 

Then the youths sang aloud all together : Wel- 
come, Hesperiou ! 

And Praxilla whispered in silence: Thrice 
welcome Hesperiou ! 

In a blush at her whisper, she turned and ran out 
to her kitciien. 



Clio. 

The Travels of Homer. 



(85) 



AUQUMENT. 

Homer takes up the account of his travels through 
Hellas in preparation for his work. All his scholars are 
present^ of whom a short list is given. He first went to 
Troy, and saw the ruined city with its plain, where the 
war took place. Then he crossed over to the continent 
of Greece, and heard the people of each village celebrate 
the deeds of its speeded hero. While singing himself 
he also heard the bards of every locality sing its special 
legend of Troy and -the aforetime. TMis Homer gath- 
ered all the stories of the Trojan toar, and fused them 
together into his great national i^oeni. He chances to 
speak of Helen and her captivity ; at once the old conjlict 
flames out among the pupils in his school. But Homer 
stops (he dispute for a short time, and continues the nar- 
rative of his travels, till the strife breaks out anew, this 
time over Hector, between Glaucus the Lycian and 
Demodocus the Ithacan. Each side is still ready to 
fight the Trojan war over a.gain. Homer once more 
harmonizes the conflict, and takes occasion to show how 
the poet must embrace in himself both sides of the strug- 
gle v.ihich he portrays. 



(86) 



Morning had come from the East saluting the 

ishmcl of Chios, 
Throwing her kisses of light along every line of 

the landscape, 
Till it stood forth in her glance, revealed and 

transfigured to vision. 
Soft was the light that she dropped from her lips 

on the hill and the valley, 
Tenderly touching the air with violet tinges and 

golden ; 
Under her feet lay the waters and over her licad 

bent the heavens. 
Both of them waked from the night, reflecting 

her soul in their stillness; 
Sea and sky, the two big blue eyes of nature, had 

opened, 

(87) 



88 HOMER IN CHIOS. 

And were looking with joy on Chios, the beauti- 
ful island, 

Where not far from the beach stood the garden 
and dwelling of Homer. 

All the youths had assembled to hear the tale 
of his travel, 

Which by the chance of the moment had been 
before interrupted ; 

Now they would hear of the way he had wan- 
dered to come to his poems, 

For they all would like to be Homers and sing 
of the heroes, 

Catching the glory of life in the lilt of a music- 
al measure. 

Glauons was there, a youth from the banks of 
the eddying Xanthns, 

Mighty his ancestor was, Bellerophon, hero of 
Lycia ; 

Warriors his race had been, but he now sought to 
be poet ; 

Singing not doing the deed he held the better vo- 
cation. 

Other great names were present from lowland 
and upland of Asia: 

Gyges, Mysius, Nastes, son of a Phrygian mon- 
arch , 

Dardan from Gargarus nigh unto Troy, tbe city 
in rnins, 



THE TRAVELS OF HOMER. 89 

Aphroditorus the curled Milesian boy, Niobidcs 
Fresh from the tears of Sipjlus — these may 

stand as examples ; 
But the foremost was Glaucus, the son and the 

grandson of Glaucus, 
Far back tracing his blood to the veins of Bel- 

lerophontes. 

Next, O Muse, thou must glance at the youths 

who crossed out of Europe. 
Young Demodocus came, who sprang from an 

order of singers. 
Living in Ithaca where they sang of the toils of 

Ulysses. 
Homer had been their guest when he touched 

their isle in his travels. 
Gathering wonderful Ithacau tales of voyages 

westward. 
Fabulous threads of song, like gossamers floating 

in sunshine. 
All to be caught by the poet and wove to a beau- 
tiful garment. 
Teucer of Salamis came, descended from Teucer 

the archer ; 
Skill in handling the bow he possessed — the 

gift of Apollo, 
But the God had refused his other great gift — 

that of wisdom ; 
Still the youth would be singer, and broke in 

scorn all his arrows, 



90 HOMER IN CHIOS. 

Talent he had for the one, desire he felt for the 

other, 
Teiicer could not what he would, and whatever 

he could ho would not. 
Burly Plexippus was there, the richest scholar 

of Homer, 
Glossy and sleek were grazing his herds in 

Thessaly grassy, 
Thousands of horses were his that drank at the 

streams of Peneios, 
Palaces too he owned and held whole cities for 

barter ; 
Somehow he thought he could simply exchange 

some cattle for verses. 
E'en the Pierian spring was his by virtue of 

money, 
Once for its waters he counted out pieces of gold 

and of silver, 
But though their fountain he bought, he never 

could purchase the Muses. 
When he returned to his country and held his 

Thessalian domains, 
All his thought was to buy up the home of the 

Gods, high Olympus, 
Then the Gods he deemed he possessed, possessing 

their mountain, 
And at his will he could call them down from their 

heights to his poem. 

Other youths from the islands had come, and 
also from Argos, 



THE TRAVELS OF IIOMEB. 91 

But the Muse has not given their names excepting 

Sophrones, 
Clear Athenian soul, devoted to worship of 

Pallas, 
Moralist ever was he, the manifold maker of 

maxims. 

Tall Hesperion too was present, just from the 

Northland, 
Sole barbarian there, yet eager to learn and to 

listen, 
Towering over the rest like Fate over beautiful 

Hellas; 
Strong were his features, yet melting to love in 

the sunshine of Chios. 

One more scholar forget not, though first pres- 
ent this morning ! 

ThiBre she stands behind by the door — the daugh- 
ter of Homer, 

Still by the door in the rear — she yet will ad- 
vance to the foreground. 

Shy are her glances, striving to hide her heart in 
her bosom, 

But they are tell-tales, and whisper the thought 
she is secretly thinking. 

Voices arose which bade the poet go on with 
his story; 
Grappling awhile for his thought again he began 
his recital : 



92 HOMER IN CHIOS. 

" First I went over to Troy, and dwelt on its 

plain and its hillock. 
In the city destroyed I stayed and lived with its 

ruins, 
Which still talk to the traveler telling their story 

so fateful. 
Elvers I saw in the plain, and heard the God of 

Scam and er 
Speak of the Heroes slain and many a furious 

battle, 
As he pointed to corselet and helmet and shield 

mid his rushes, 
Showinojthe skulls of the dead that o-rinned from 

the ooze of his stream bed. 
Thence I passed on the sea in a ship from island 

to island, 
Felt the favor of hoary Poseidon, and felt too his 

anger, 
When he would roll up the waves in a storm by 

the might of his trident; 
Him I once saw in his chariot scudding away on 

the billow 
Right into sunset, and leaving a fiery track 

through the waters. 
Glad for my life I was when I came to the main- 
land of Hellas, 
Peoples I saw, their cities and customs, but 

chieily their legends 
Drew me to listen and gather each radiant shred 

of their spirit. 



THE TRAVEL kS OF HOMEB. 93 

Heroes unknown I found everywhere, great men 

of their vilhige, 
Whose high deeds were at festivals sung by their 

townsmen in worship, 
For each village its Hero must have and revere 

him divinely. 
Every bard in the country I heard and stored up 

his fables. 
Till the Delphian cleft which utters the measures 

prophetic. 
Till the Thcsprotian land where speak the oaks of 

Dodona, 
Till the Olympian heights where Gods look 

down upon Hellas. 
And to Helicon came I and heard the song of its 

Muses, 
Sinscinof a rival strain to the Sisters who sit on 

Parnassus ; 
There I listened to Hesiod, crabbed old singer of 

Ascra, 
And I gave-him a note of the song that was rising 

within me, 
I had already begun the new lay of the Gods and 

the Heroes. 
For a moment he ceased his complaints of man 

and of woman. 
Quit his dark world of monsters primeval and 

hazy huge Titans, 
Just lono; enough for a laugh to break out like a 

flash from a storm-cloud, 



94 IIOMEB IN CHIOS. 

And to saj to me: Friend, I shall visit thee 
sometime in Chios." 



Here the poet himself was a smile and dropped 

into silence 
For a minute or more, and then he returned to 

his story: 
"Early to Argos I came and heard in a hymn the 

whole people 
Chanting the glory of Diomed, who was their 

valorous leader. 
How in the war of Troy he fought with the 

Gods, though a mortal. 
Fought with two Trojan Gods in the might of 

his heiirt, and he conquered ; 
For the Greek though a man, must put down the 

God if a Trojan. 
* That ' I said to myself ' is a note in the lay of 

our Hellas, 
In the grand lay of our Hellas that is a strain of 

the music ; 
Part of the one vast temple of song in the soul 

of the nation, 
I shall take it and mould it and build it mto my 

poem.' 
Each little fragment of life and each stray film 

of a story. 
Name of mountain, river and town, whatever I 

found there, 



THE TEAVELS OF IIOMEB. 95 

All I picked up on the spot, and began to v.'cave 

them together, 
By the aid of Mnemosyne, Muse who always re- 
members. 
Then to Mycence I went, the golden, where 

dwelt Agamemnon, 
Through the portal I passed that was guarded 

above by the Lions, 
Fiercely glaring in stone at the man who entered 

their gateway. 
Much the splendid city had waned from its old 

Trojan glory. 
And the look of the sunset rested all day on its 

towers. 
There I learned the King's fate at the hands of 

his wife Clytemnestra, 
And the death of herself and her lover, both 

slain by Orestes. 
Sad was the tale of the doomful House of the 

Monarch wide-ruling, 
I could never refrain from repeating that tale in 

my measures, 
Truest example, methinks, of the dealing of 

Gods with us mortals. 
Still to be sung in many new poems to millions 

hereafter. 
It will be poured into bronze, and hewn out of 

whitest of marble, 
Told in tongues yet unborn, to measures unheard 

of in llelUis. 



96 HOMER IN CHIOS. 

Wretched indeed is the mau, if the Gods in his 

pride, he obey not ; 
Base ^gisthus, I feel in my heart the point of 

thy dagger !" 

Fervidly spake the old mau, and he seemed 

overcome by his story, 
Thinking the fate that befel the great prince 

of the Greeks, Agamemnon. 
To his own life the poet transmuted the lives 

of the Heroes, 
Every thread of a fable he span to a strand of 

his heart-strings, 
Each wild word of the wildest old legend he 

caught and transfigured. 
Unto each sorrow of mortal his bosom beat 

mighty responses ; 
Nobly tlie youths were led to revere the man in 

the poet. 

Soon his gloom he had caught and flung it far 
back into Lethe, 

Whence at times it escapes in the brightest of 
souls up to daylight. 

And he began, in his countenance looking the 
look of the sunrise : 

" Over the heights I scrambled, that was a coun- 
try of mountains ! 

Woodmen I met in the forest, here and there a 
small hamlet. 



THE TRAVELS OF HOMEB. 97 

But every where I could fiud some fragment of 

song or of story. 
Through the glens I passed of the piping Arcadian 

shepherds, 
Through the hills full of music down into the 

vale of Eurotas, 
Where lay Sparta — and there was the home of 

the beautiful Helen. 
Still the palace I saw in the sunlight, where Paris 

the Trojan 
As a guest was grandly received by the King 

Menelaus, 
And I saw too the glance of the eye and the 

thought of the woman. 
In its first flash to the fateful resolve — of wars 

the beginning ! 
Madly I followed each step on the path of the 

sea as she fled thence. 
Feeling the glow and the guilt of a passionate 

world in each heart-beat. 
Watched her enter the ship, the sheltering ship of 

her lover, 
Watched it ride on the sea till it vanished afar on 

the waters. 
There I sank on the sand, as the dead man drops 

from the arrow 
Sent to his heart, and I died for a while in the 

batt-le of Helen. 
O Aphrodite, Goddess of joy that is paid with 

all sorrow, 

7 



98 HOMER IN CHIOS. 

Queen of the love that bears in its proof the bit- 
terest vengeance, 
There I fell down the thrall of thy spell, but I 

rose up the master. 
Thou dost also possess in thy right the soul of 

the singer, 
I was Paris myself and I fled to the East with my 

Helen, 
Troy I was too and its siege, I was taken and 

burnt into ashes ; 
But I am also the law which is read in the flames 

of the city. 
And I am the stern judgment of Gods who speak 

from its ruins." 

When the poet had stopped in the rush of his 

words for a moment. 
See ! a youth stands forth with a flash in his eye 

like a falchion, 
Lycian Glaucus it is, from the banks of the eddy- 
ing Xanthus, 
Grandson of Glaucus who fell in the war by the 

walls of the Trojans, 
Sprung of the seed of Heroes, though poesy 

now he has chosen; 
Standing forth from the ranks of his friends, thus 

says he to Homer: 
"Helen belonged to our side, for she was tlie 

woman of beauty, 



THE TRAVELS OF HOMER. 99 

We had to take her and keep her, or lose the 

heritage lovely, 
Basely resign it to others, and yield up the claim 

of fair Asia. 
Twenty years she was ours, of all the great war 

she was worthy. 
Twenty years she was ours, and we paid but the 

price of a city, 
Even one moment of Helen is worth all the losses 

of Priam." 

Scarce had he done when a valorous youth 

sprang out of the front-line 
From the opposite ranks, as if to respond to the 

challenge ; 
It was Demodocus, son of Demodociis, Ithaca's 

singer, 
Now in the school of the poet to learn the new 

song of the ages ; 
Far in advance was the song of all that were sung 

in his country 
By the old bards, his fathers. Pointing his finger 

at Glaucus, 
Raising his arm and smiting the air at each word, 

he spoke thus : 
*' Yes, we smote you, we burnt you, we bound you 

when sated with slaughter, 
Women we seized and your wealth, we wasted 

the city and country. 



100 HOMER IN CHIOS. 

Little was left io the land, in yonr gore we 
painted our glory, 

And the same fate awaits you again if you come 
to the trial. 

Helen, the prize of the world, you had to sur- 
render forever." 

Each of the fiery speakers had spoken his speech 

in a fury ; 
See the turn ! how strange ! they are looking no 

more at each other. 
Both of them bending the head, they covertly 

glance at one object, 
Eight at one point where stands the beautiful 

daughter of Homer, 
As if Helen she were, to be fought for and won 

by a nation. 
But in the background quite overtopping them 

all stood the stranger, 
Just behind the fair daughter he stood and 

seemed to be weighing. 
Dreamful, blue-eyed Hesperion, yesterday come 

from the Northland, 
Now he seemed to be weighing two weights in 

the scales of a balance. 

In the midst of the din the poet uprose from 
his settle, 
As great Zeus on Olympus, the God of the Greeks 
and the Trojans, 



THE TBAVELS OF HOMER. 101 

Who looks down to the earth and judges the 
struggle of mortals. 

Homer suddenly saw the old conflict arise in his 
scholars, 

Every battle at Troy was still in them — how 
could they help it? 

From the East and the West they had come, from 
Hellas and Asia, 

Deep is that scission of soul and of time — a 
breach everlasting. 

Not to be healed but by one who is both the 
victor and vanquished. 

Who can feel the defeat triumphant, the triumph 
defeated. 

Who can be slayer and slain, and rise up new- 
born from his ashes. 

Homer united both sides, and both saluted him 
poet, 

What in them was a discord, he turned into har- 
mony lasting, 

What was twain in their lives, in his he made one 
and a poem. 

All had their own completeness in him, so hailed 
him as master. 

When to speak he began, one word changed 
strife into concord : 
«' Hold, O youths," he cried, " cease wrangling 
at once in my presence ; 



102 HOMEB IN CHIOS. 

Learn from to-day just what is the bondage you 

are to get rid of : 
Free is the poet, but free you are not when ruled 

by a passion ; 
Whole he must be, but whole you are not when 

halved into parties ; 
Music you never will make if the soul hath a 

break in its tension. 
Hear entirely; now let us go on with the rest of 

my story. 
Over to Pylos I passed, and saw the land of sage 

Nestor, 
Who returned to his home from the war un- 
troubled by tempest, 
Or by the wrath of the Gods, which wrecked so 

many returning. 
Older than I am he was when at Troy, and yet a 

good soldier. 
Fond of the fight, but of telling a tale of his youth 

still fonder. 
Thence I sailed to Ithaca where I heard of 

Ulysses, 
Wisest of men, he endured; and enduring, he 

rose in his wisdom ; 
Great were his deeds at Troy, for he was the 

Hero who took it. 
Mounting its walls by the wooden horse that was 

winged with his cunning ; 
Over Achilles he rises, through might of the 

spirit's contrivance. 



THE TRAVELS OF IIOMEB. 103 

But yet greater bis task was after the city had 

fallen ; 
To return was the Hero's work, to return to his 

country 
And to his wife, through storms of the sea and 

himself in his doubting. 
Wandering through the whole world that lies out 

the sunlight of Hellas, 
Into the magical islands beyond the bounds of 

our knowledge, 
Suffering sailed he on, though losing all his 

companions ; 
Ithacan bards there told me his tale of the Cyclops, 

of Circe, 
Even through Hades he passed, through the realm 

of spirits departed ; 
Living, the Hero must go beyond life, and return 

to the living. 
Thither I followed him too, in my age I told his 

adventures. 
Bringing him back to Penelope prudent and 

Ithaca sunny; 
Last of my song is this, it has just lately been 

finished, 
Though some parts have been sung long since at 

the festivals Chian, 
Showing a glimpse of the West where men find 

always their new-world." 



104 HOMER IN CHIOS. 

Thus he spake, and he turned, though blind, 

with his face to the sundown, 
Where in his path Hesperion, thoughtful, was 

standing in silence ; 
But before he began, interposed Sophrones of 

Athens : 
" Why such a liar and rogue did you make him, 

your hero Ulysses?" 
" Penalty too he must pay, the penalty even of 

wisdom," 
Answered Homerus, thoughtful, forecasting his 

words for his scholars. 
Low and slow he now spoke, as if with his soul 

he were talking: 

" Always the deed must be paid for, the doer 

heroic must suffer, 
Virtue arouses revenges and duty may call up the 

Furies ; 
Double the conflict must be, and the right may 

also be double. 
O Ulysses, great was thy action, but followed by 

curses ! 
The reward of thy life will be centuries full of 

reproaches ! 
Wrongful men thou didst pay with their wrong, 

for this expect judgment; 
Thou didst meet the guileful with guile, smite 

foes with their weapons. 



THE TRAVELS OF HOMER. 105 

Thou shalt be rated as guileful and cruel in turn 

for tliine action. 
Compensation, the law, has been laid by the 

Gods upon me too, 
All the sunshine of nature is dark in spite of my 

vision, 
Insight the Muses have given, but for it my sight 

has been taken." 

Such was the answer, but it met not the need 

of Sophrones, 
Who was the moralist trying old tales with the 

touchstone of virtue, 
Easily solving the problem heroic by rule or a 

maxim. 
Excellent maxim for men who have not the stress 

of the problem. 
Thus the worthy Sophrones tested the life of the 

Hero, 
Putting his standard to each and measuring 

strictly the defect. 
Hear him again, for always Sophrones has one 

other question : 
" Which was right, the Greek or the Trojan? 

That is the point now, 
Truly the point to be settled before I can enter 

this calling. 
Much I have been worried about it, and still no 

decision. 



106 HOMEB IN CHIOS. 

Ere I can sing, I must know just what is and 

who are the righteous. 
Dare I confess? I like not Achilles, Ulysses, 

not Helen, 
Beautiful Helen — she is not beautiful seen by 

my vision, 
Nor can I love Penelope prudent with all of her 

cunning; 
Aye, the Gods of Olympus I like not, I cannot 

adore them ; 
Zeus do you think I can worship, a God with the 

passions that I have?" 

Homer, the poet, was silent; Sophrones, how- 
ever, grew louder: 
*' Best of them all is Hector the Trojan, the man 

most perfect. 
True to the wife of his heart and doing his duty 

to country. 
Brave as a lion in war and gentle at home as a 

woman. 
But, like the good man always, he had to fall in 

the struggle, 
And by fate to lose what he fought for — his 

cause and his city. 
Such is the world — the great men are bad and 

the good men must perish." 

On the spot the sparkles were flying from one 
of the scholars, 



THE TRAVELS OF HOMER. 107 

It was Glaucus who spoke, the fiery Lycian bard- 
ling : 
** He was right — great Hector — defending 
his home and his nation 

From the wanton attack of the bandits who sought 
to destroy them ; 

Valiant in every way he was for his land and his 
people, 

He is the Hero of Homer, I say, the only true 
Hero; 

Hector was right, will be right forever, and he was 
a Trojan." 

Then he turned to one of the company seeking 
approval, 

Just from one and no more he sought it — the 
daughter of Homer, 

Not from the father the poet, but from the beau- 
tiful daughter 

Sought he the meed of a glance for his verses, 
but she beheld not, 

For she was looking away from the youths in an- 
other direction. 

But in answer Demodocus spoke, his vigorous 

rival, 
Rival not only in verse, but also in love of the 

maiden : 
" Yes, but he fought for the thing that was 

wrong and he knew it — your Hector ! 



108 HOMER IN CHIOS. 

For the rape of Helen he fought and made it his 

own thus ; 
Aye, the good husband battled in Troy to keep 

wife from husband. 
What in his soul he condemned, he supported by 

arms and by words too. 
And so died of a lie in his life and the spear of 

Achilles." 

Suiting the act to the speech, Demodocus drew 

back and lifted 
Hand and arm to a poise, as if he were hurling the 

weapon 
Straight at Hector, to slay him before the battle- 
ments Trojan; 
Lycian Glaucus shrank not, but leaped to the 

front at the challenge. 
Great was the uproar; the war of Troy once 

more was beginning 
Right in the school of Homer, but quickly the 

master bade silence: 
" Hearken, O 3'ouths, what I say, and learn 

by example a lesson ! 
Not a part is the poet, nor is he owned by a 

party. 
On which side do I sing in my poem — the Greek 

or the Trojan? 
Mark it — on both and on neither; the will of 

Zeus is accomplished, 



THE TRAVELS OF HOMEB. 109 

God supreme of the Ilelleues, rising above all 

conflict. 
Not with another, but with himself is the poet's 

true struggle. 
He is the slayer and slain and his soul is the 

place of the battle. 
Much I think with the Greeks and much I feel 

with the Trojans, 
These have my heart perchance, but those take 

hold of my reason ; 
Zeus too loves his dear children in Troy, but de- 
cides for Achsea. 
Ah, the poet must fight in himself the dolorous 

combat. 
As the God fought the God in the fray on the 

heights of Olympus; 
Wounds he cannot escape, he must bleed in the 

battle on both sides ; 
Showing the strife of the time, he shows too the 

strife in his bosom. 
But he must heal it — just that is the seal of the 

God on the singer; 
Rage, war, battles he sings, but also the peace 

and atonement, 
Sings great Achilles in wrath, and reconciled 

sings great Achilles. 
Now let the truce be confirmed between botii 

the Greeks and the Trojans, 
And in our joy we shall pour to the Gods a hearty 

libation." 



110 HOMER IN CHIOS. 

Tall Hesperion silently heard the dispute of the 

bardlings, 
Much he had learned about Hellas, and seen the 

two sides of the conflict, 
Seen it still living and parting atwain the new 

generation, 
Who were ready to fight over Troy, and over its 

poem. 
But the best was, he saw the poet bring both 

sides to oneness, 
Out of discordance bring harmony lofty of men 

and of Gods too, 
Making the tumult of war sing the song of 

Olympian order. 

Homer in happiest mood uprose and continued 

his talking : 
*' Youths, Demodocus, Glaucus, now heal ye the 

wounds of each other. 
Thinking the thought of high Zeus, as it sings to 

a melody god-born. 
Speaking divinity's word which is sprung of the 

soul's recognition. 
Valiant ye be, but let us proclaim, the war is 

now over. 
All in one joy to-day let the East and the West 

greet as brothers, 
Each of them taking the best of the other as 

test of his spirit !" 



THE TRAVELS OF HOMES. HI 

Turning aside, ho spoke out the word of com- 
mand in a transport : • 
"Speed thee, Amyntas, my boy, a full jar of 

old Chian, the oldest, 
Ten years' ripe let it be, for age in the wine 

bringeth wisdom 
Back to the drinker, in concord attuning anew 

the lost temper, 
Bringino: the oneness of truth into souls that 

differ by nature. 
Here comes the wine, already I catch a whiff of 

its fragrance. 
Oldest of Chian it is, a God would mistake it for 

nectar. 
Glaucus, Demodociis, Gyges, Plexippus, and 

Aphroditorus, 
Noble Hesperion also, thou valorous youth of the 

Northland, 
Pledge now a health to yourselves, and pour to 

the Gods a libation." 

All the youths of the school, most willing, 

obeyed the good master, 
Touched loving lips to the brim of the wine on 

the rim of the beaker. 
Pledging a health to themselves and pouring to 

Gods a libation. 

Hark ! mid tiie draught a shrill noise is disturb- 
ing the How of the liquid. 



112 HOME It IN CllIO/S. 

'Tis the rickety gate as grinding it grates on its 

hinges. 
Opening first to a push, then backward it slams 

with a racket; 
What is the shape that noisily enters and 

shuffles along there? 
Man well-known in Chios he is, well-known unto 

Homer, 
Satisfied man with himself he seems by the turn 

of his features. 
That is the pedagogue, first of the island, the lord 

of the laurel, 
Which he doth use as a switch for teacbino; the 

verses of poets, 
Teaching the boys of his school the glory and 

gift of the Muses, 
Whose fair branch he now twirls in his hand as 

he turns up the pathway. 
Terrible pedagogue Chian he comes, the thrasher 

and slasher, 
Thrashing the youths into lore and slashing the 

poets to pieces, 
Into the school of Homer he walks — he is here — 

O Typtodes ! 



VI. 



The Pedagogue Chia^i. 



(113) 



ARGUMENT. 

A rival school to that of Homer is taught by Typtodes, 
the Chian schoolmaster, tuho comes one day to have a 
short visit tvith the poet. Typtodes is the severe critic 
of Homer's poems, and cuts them to pieces quite as 
some modern professors have done. But the school- 
master is a progressive man and is now specially inter- 
ested in the new script lohich has been brought from 
Phoenicia. In fact he is giving to the ]}oems of Homer 
their first alphabetic dress in spite of his criticism. It 
turns out that Typtodes has really come to see the daugh- 
ter of the poet, though he disguises the fact. But his 
bitter criticism is modified by the wine tvhich Homer 
causes to be brought him, and his final questions are in 
a different vein from his first utterances. A new man 
appeurs tvho will give some ansiver to ivhat Typtodes has 
asked. 



(114) 



Not iilone and unchiillenged the poet held sway 

ill his city, 
There was a rival in Chios, who in his reahn was 

the ruler. 
Most of the youths of the place were sent to the 

school of Typtodes, 
Crusty Typtodes, a far-famed trouncer of boys 

into learning, 
Tickling bare legs of Greek boys till they danced 

to the sprig of his laurel, 
Which he always held in his hand while he made 

them con verses, 
Rousing the Muses unwilling by use of their 

favorite symbol. 

(115) 



116 HOMER IN CHIOS. 

Some were verses struck at a heat from the heart 
of a poet, 

With ail Olympian might, aud flowing and glow- 
ing forever 

In the fire and flash of the words of the i)rimal 
conception. 

But the others, the most, were his own, the ped- 
agogue's verses, 

Made without a mistake according to rule in his 
school-room, 

Flawlessly made out of wood, the toughest wood 
in the forest. 

In his sandals he shuffles along the loose stones 

of the pathway ; 
Slyly he shutfles and seems to be slipping about 

on his tiptoes. 
As the schoolmaster warily slippeth around in 

the school-room. 
Seeking to catch in the act the bad boy who is 

making the mischief. 
Gaunt and ungainly the man, and somewhat 

stilted in posture, 
Sparse was the beard, each hair from his visage 

shot out like a bristle 
Ready to stick and to prick any person approach- 
ing too near him. 
Even the kiss of Typtodes had the keen point of 

a briar. 



THE FEDAGOOUE CHI AN. 117 

Thin was the nap on his garment, exact each step 

that he took there, 
Always the branch of the laurel he held in his 

hand while walking 
Had in its swaying upward and downward the 

look of precision. 
Sharp was the thrust of his eye, as it peered from 

the hole of the eyebrows. 
Slightly barbed was the point of his nose, no 

mercy allowing, 
No escape for the foe ; his whole visage seemed 

pointed and ready, 
Even his look was a cut and his tongue had two 

edges of sharpness. 
Yet the man had his virtues —industry, feeling 

of duty, 
Faith in knowledge he never gave up, in spite of 

reverses, 
And, on the whole, he believed in the movement 

of men to the better. 
Bearer of light to Chios he was, when the day 

was beginning. 
Homer he was not, and yet but for him there had 

been no Homer, 
Whom he first put into script from the word and 

made everlasting. 
By the skill which he had in tracing Phwnician 

letters. 
This fair day he has come to have a good visit 

with Homer, 



118 HOMEll IN CHIOS. 

Whom as a man he liked, as a fellow-craftsman 
respected, 

Deeming himself to be, however, the much bet- 
ter poet. 

Though the world had passed on the men a differ- 
ent judgment. 

He had heard of the beauty, too, of the daughter 
of Homer ; 
Living in the same town all his life he never had 

seen her, 
Never had seen her, though knowing by heart 

every word of her parent. 
Not too young to be curious, not too old was 

Typtodes, 
Pedagogue Chian who sought for a glimpse of 

the beautiful maiden. 
Though, of course, he pretended to come for a 

chat with the father. 

Settled down in his seat he began to talk of his 

methods. 
How the rule had been found, and the glory was 

great of the finder. 
" Yes, methinks I have brought to perfection this 

science of teaching ! 
Surely not much will the schoolmaster have to be 

doing hereafter 
But to follow, ages on ages, the steps of Typtodes. 



THE PEDAGOGUE CHI AN. 119 

What great progress to-day we arc making io 

every department ! • 
Some weeks ago a new churn was invented by 

Phagon of Samos, 
Hither he brought it at once and showed it around 

iu our island; 
Soon each household of Chios will have it, soon 

will be churning, 
Churning away for dear life the milk of the kine 

of the country ; 
Barbarous oil-eating Greeks will change into 

eaters of butter, 
That is improvement, that, I call, the grand 

march of the species ! 
Only one fear I cannot help feeling amid all our 

progress ; 
All the world will have nothing to do , and so will 

do nothing, 
After that we are gone, and have left it the fruit 

of our labor ; 
Idleness is the great curse, our children will have 

to be idle ; 
Such is my fear ; so I one day have resolved to 

take easy; 
Having dismissed my school, I would dally awhile 

in your garden, 
Leave the words of the poem behind and talk with 

the poet." 

Here he stopped for a moment and slyly was 
peeping around him, 



120 HOME It IN CHIOS. 

Once, twice, thrice he looked, and every look wa^ 

a question, 
Asking, " Where, I wonder?" but without any 

answer, 
Though he could hear a sweet stray note now and 

then from an arbor. 
In its stead unwilling he heard the voice of old 

Homer : 
" Friend, have you any new light on the dark way 

of life ? — O give it — 
Some fresh word upon fate or the law or the 

wonderful secret ; 
Eyesight is gone, and often I feel the bounds of 

my insight; 
Often I feel the bounds of the word in the stress 

of the spirit." 

Then began in the height of his mood the peda- 
gogue Chian : 

" We have lately been reading, or rather reciting 
your poems. 

Since in the school or the market they still for 
the ear are recited. 

Though I myself can read those recent Phoenician 
symbols. 

Catching the sound of the voice in the devious 
tracery of letters ; 

I alone of all of the men in the island of Chios, 

I can wind out the lal^yriuth weird made of 
strange Alpha-Beta, 



THE PEDAGOGUE CHIAN. 121 

Follow the clew to the end and bring back the 

prize that is hidden, • 
Hidden away by a spell in the heart of the char- 
acters mystic. 
Into those signs I have been transformins^ the 

voice of your verses, 
Scratching the musical sound into signs which 

now are called letters. 
Magical symbols of fast-fleeting speech, which 

fix it forever, 
Holding it firm to the sight when the tongue 

which spake it, is silent. 
But not yet I have seen your beautiful daughter, 

Homerus, 
Whom Fame whispers abroad in every nook of 

our Hellas." 

"O good man," said the poet, "aught more 

would I hear of this wonder, 
Which has caught and is holdino; the word to 

make it eternal ; 
Fate forbids me to see it. Oh then let me learn of 

the marvel 
Changing the world at a stroke by giving the past 

to the future." 

Crabbed Typtodes perchance was not pleased 
with the turn of the answer, 
But he began on the spot to speak out the thing 
that was in him: 



122 HOMEB IN CHIOS. 

" Let that pass — all that which 1 said of Phoe- 
nician letters. 
We have glanced these days down into the depths 

of your poems; 
Now I am going to speak you the word of friend- 
ship and frankness. 
You, I find, are not accurate, shifting the dates 

of your action, 
Not quite correct in the facts, and you give your 

twist to the story. 
All your tales of the Gods are turned to the 

bent of your thinking, 
Somehow changed from the old they seem to be 

bearing your impress. 
Often you make in your spring important mis- 
takes in the measure. 
Short where it ought to be long, and long where 

it ought to be shortened. 
Forcing the stress of the voice in places where it 

belongs not. 
And I hold the hexameter is not fit for your 

poem, 
Which, so rapid in movement, should not be 

delayed by the meter ; 
If you only had asked me, I could have told you 

a better. 
Nay, I deem that measure not suitable to the 

Greek language, 
Which has a boisterous genius not to be swaddled 

in long clothes ; 



THE PEDAGOGUE CHI AN. 123 

You should remember from Troy the Greeks no 
longer are babies. 

Hark to a verse of your poem, describing far- 
darting Apollo, 

Which should be simple and rapid and grand, 
divine in its movement; 

Slowly it drags along and cumbers its flight with 
its lumber. 

Then at the end it suddenly whisks and swashes 
its tail round. 

What a blasphemy ! Phoebus will take from his 
quiver an arrow. 

Sly invisible arrow, penalty due to the Muses, 

Put the notch to the bow-string and pull it — be- 
hold ! who is stricken !'■ 

Warmed to his work was shrilly Typtodes, 
and so he continued, 

Cruelly lashing himself into slashing to frag- 
ments the poet : 

"And that mixture of words from every part of 
our Hellas, 

Mixture poetic of fragments of speech from 
island and mainland, 

Doric, Ionic, JEolic, how can it ever be lasting? 

It is a wonder that people to-day are willing to 
hear it ; 

No such jargon has ever been spoken by Greek 
or Barbarian, 



124 HOMER IN CHIOS. 

Crumbs from the table of tongues — and that is 

the language of Homer. 
Though to nature it be not kin, still I put it in 

writing, 
And I study it too, though I have to tear it to 

fragments; 
What seems substance turns in my hands to the 

flimsiest shadow, 
I confess I have pleasure in knocking nothing to 

pieces, 
All to pieces I knock it so that it appears to be 

somethinof. " 



Satisfied well with his work, Typtodes contin- 
ued in judgment: 
" Nor are your characters always consistent, 

however heroic, 
Diomed changes, Ulysses is never the same in 

two stories. 
And your implacable Hero is placated twice in 

his anger. 
Homer himself is never the same, but shifts to 

another, 
Dozens and dozens of Homers I find ensconced 

in your verses. 
Your large poem doth fall of itself into many 

small poems. 
Which, I know, were sung by hundreds of singers 

before you, 



THE PEDAGOGUE CIIIAN. 125 

Who were the piiinitive makers of what you have 

gathered and taken ; 
You are but a collection of songs, a string of 

loose ballads, 
You arc not one and a plan, but many 3''ou are 

and planless. 
Now I shall state to your face the final result of 

my wisdom : 
Homer, a3'e Homer himself is not the true author 

of Homer." 



Up rose the pedagogue Chian and stretched to 

the height of his stature. 
Whirled his ponderous arm as if a boy he were 

flogging, 
Slashing the verses of Homer, a pupil he seemed 

to be thrashing, 
Terrible pedagogue Chian, the slasher and 

thrasher Typtodes. 

But in response he called up the cheerful humor 

of Homer : 
'*Take my book and study it further; perchance 

you can read it 
In that new sort of script which you say has come 

from Phoenicia. 
One is the book if you arc one and can ever be 

happy. 
Wholeness first being found in yourself, is found 

then outside you, 



126 HOMER IN CHIOS. 

I am halved and quartered if you are a half or a 

quarter, 
But a whole I shall be, if you are a whole in my 

study ; 
Discord enough you will find in my poem , if you 

be discordant, 
Discord enough in the world if harmony to you 

be wantmg. 
But those wonderful letters — would I miffbt see 

them and read them ! 
Ere I pass from this earth, I would know the 

Phoenician letters!" 

Mild was the manner and sweet was the voice 

of the godlike singer, 
Dropping transparent as pearls the beautiful 

words of his wisdom, 
Showing in chilly old age the upspring of young 

aspiration. 
But that terrible fragment of man, the trouncer 

Typtodcs, 
Spake once more, and showed in his voice a dash 

of resentment : 
*' My next business will be to cut up your book 

into ballads, 
I shall put the keen knife of this brain to each 

joint of your body, 
Though I be but a half or a quarter, or less than 

a quarter, 



THE PEDAGOGUE CHI AN. 127 

Yoa shall be smaller than 1 am, you I shall chop 

into mince-meat." 
*' In dissecting, oft the dissector himself is 

dissected ; 
What to another he fits, may fit just the fitter," 

said Homer. 
" What a prophet you are? In you I foresee the 

grand army 
Who will cut me and stab me with every sort of 

a weapon. 
Gashing and slashing my whole poetical body 

to fragments. 
Still I affirm your army so grand can never defeat 

me, 
I shall remain as I am, the wounds will return to 

the giver. 
But let us stop this pitiful wrangle, it wholly 

untunes me ; 
Harmony, wisdom, hope it hath not, but ends in 

mere nothing. 
Cheerful now let us pour to the Gods a hearty 

libation. 
Then let us pour to ourselves a good draught in 

the warmth of our worship." 

Mellowed at once to the rhythm of wine Typ- 
todes gave answer: 
*' Now you are truly a poet, with fresh inspira- 
tion you touch me ; 



128 HOMEB IN CHIOS. 

Wine is a poem in drops, which you easily sip in 
small verselets; 

That hexameter which you just made while urg- 
ing libation, 

Was a good one — the best, to my taste, you 
ever have spoken. 

Better, I think, I shall now understand the drift 
of your verses." 

Look ! a beautiful figure has flitted past to the 
garden; 

Is it a sudden dream, a phantom of vision fan- 
tastic ? 

No ; Typtodes has caught a glimpse of the 
daughter of Homer, 

Caught one fitful glimpse of the shape of the 
beautiful maiden, 

More he longed for and looked for, but he re- 
ceived not the second. 

"Now I would know," he said, "how you build 

with such skill your grand temple, 
How you turn your soul into music that flows in 

your measures, 
How you turn all the world into harmony wedded 

to beauty, 
How you call down the Gods themselves from the 

heights of Olympus? " 
"Bravely," the poet replied, "you aim at the 

white of the mark now ; 



THE PEDAGOGUE CUIAN. 129 

But it is not my calling to point out the path of 

the Muses 
In their flight through the air down to men from 

the top of Parnassus. 
Surely enough it is if I hear them when they are 

singing, 
And repeat their melodious strain in its fullness 

to mortals. 
Faint is the note at first, but it goes on extending 

and swelling, 
Till it sweeps to its musical train the whole earth 

and the heaven, 
Tuning the discord below and above, of men and 

of Gods too." 
"But whence cometh the world of the Gods and 

their sway on Olympus? 
To the beginning I wish to return and make my 

inquiry." 

So spake Typtodes, when a new figure rose 

over a hillock 
Walking out of the distance, amid the orchard of 

olives. 
" Aye, whence cometh the num, who goes to the 

Houses of Hades? 
What is he here for — the mortal of clay once 

shaped by Prometheus? 
And the woman, his mate, the beautiful, fateful, 

what is she?" 

9 



130 HOMEB IN CHIOS. 

Asking he glanced to the right and the left for 

the daughter of Homer, 
Nowhere he saw her, but in her stead he beheld 

through the leaflets, 
Slowly approaching, the man he had seen before 

in the distance. 

Such were the questions which eager Typtodes 

put to Homerus, 
Who replied not, but seemed of something else to' 

be thinking. 
Hark to the groan of the gate which suddenly 

grinds on its hinges! 



VII. 



The Singer of A sera. 



(131) 



ARGUMENT. 

Tlie person approaching turns out to he Hesiod, the 
poet of Ascra in Bceotia, whom Homer had met in his 
travels and whom he had invited to come on a visit to 
Chios. Hesiod is received hij his brother poet^ and tells 
his story of the Gods, and his view of the world. He, 
too, will see and knoio the daughter of Homer, though 
he has no good opinion of looman. Finally he beholds 
her, when, for a sarcasm on her sex, she gives him a 
tart reply. The old Greek misogymist and pessimist 
slips away from the company, and vanishes out of Chios 
at the appearance of another woman, the songstress of 
Lesbos. 



(132) 



All start up at the stridulous sound to see what is 

coming, 
When a stranger moves into the path of the 

eye to the heavens, 
Leisurely comes down the walk which leads to the 

garden of Homer, 
Beautiful garden of fruit and of flowers, of shade 

and of sunshine. 
Broad and bony the hand of the man, and 

knotted the knuckles. 
Trained to whirling the ax by the helve in the 

woods on the mountain. 

Trained to holding the plow by the handle in 

turning the furrow, 

Used to toil were his palms, and hardened to 

horn by his labor. 

(133) 



134 B03IEB IN" CHIOS. 

Great strong lines he had in his face dividing it 

crosswise, 
Also dividing it lengthwise to network of val- 

ley and mountain, 
Which would rise and fall into billows of rough 

corrugations : 
Surely that face was a battle, the battle of Gods 

and of Titans, 
Seizing and hurling volcanoes aflame in their 

wrath at each other. 
Under his features was lying a scowl, which 

seemed to be born there, 
Which would dart from its lair in his look, spit- 
ting fire like a dragon ; 
Strange was the tone of his speech, yet stranger 

his play of grimaces. 
Lips would writhe at each word, as if it were 

sore to be spoken. 
Hark ! he is ready to speak and turns to the poet 

of Chios: 

" Over the sea I have come in a ship from the 

mainland of Hellas ; 
Voyage unblest, for Poseidon was trying each 

minute to drown me, 
Dashing his waves on the craft and mightily 

cleaving the waters ; 
Often he opened his jaws and shut them tight on 

the vessel. 



THE SINGER OF ASCBA. 135 

How I escaped I know not, but salted and scared 

I escaped bira. 
Heavy Boeotia is my borne, my village is Ascra, 
Ugly village of Ascra, vile in tbe summer and 

winter. 
Tbere I sang of tbe Birtb of tbe Gods and tbe 

Works of poor mortals, 
Mortals, wbo sweating and swinking in life, die 

at last in a discord." 

" What a note istbat in tbe sunligbtof Chios," 

cried Homer, 
" Wbo art tbou, man? Some tricks of thy voice 

I have beard in my travels." 
Twisting bis face into scowls, as if be were tasting 

of wormwood, 
Spake tbe poet of Ascra, and spitefully spat out 

tbe bitter : 
" Well tbou knowest, for tbou bast borrowed 

some of my verses, 
Hiding the source in a word, tbou hast called it 

tbe breath of tbe Muses. 
Once I sang lor thee when tbou badst come to 

my home in thy journey, 
Sang of tbe eldest Gods wbo were born of Chaos 

primeval, 
For I like to go back to tbe start, though it be 

all in darkness, 
Origin ever I seek, although I can never quite 

reach it. 



136 HOMEE IN CHIOS. 

What a pleasure lo run from the sheen of the 
sun back to nothinsf ! 

This Olympian order of thine, it came of dis- 
order, 

Which is my burden of song reaching back to 
the very beginnmg ; 

Even this beautiful day now sporting in joy of 
the sunshine. 

Not long ago was born of the night and to night 
it returneth." 

"Hail, O brother," said Homer, the bard, to 

the poet of Ascra, 
" I have heard thee before on Helicon — now I 

remember — 
Bleak was the day and hoarse was the wind that 

blew up the valley. 
Be at home, O guest ; give us more of thy song — 

I would listen." 

Then again the poet of Ascra seemed tasting of 

wormwood, 
Ere his strain he began in the stress of a mighty 

upheaval ; 
Soon into thunderous words he let out the soul 

of old Chaos: 
" All this isle, this world, as we see it, was once 

but a monster. 
Peopled with monstcj'-< grim in the grey of the 

distant uforelime; 



THE SINGER OF ASCRA. 137 

There I love to dwell with old Cronus who swal- 
lowed his offspring, 
Even to Uranus oft I go back for a gaze in the 

twilight, 
And I dally with Nereus, parent of beautiful 

daughters, 
Thousandfold forms of the billowsrising, rolling, 

retreating. 
Fleeting forever away in the haze of the distant 

horizon, 
Leaping anew into life as they rise to the top of 

the sea-swell. 
O for the mightiest monsters of old! I tell you, 

I like them ; 
All day long I could sing of the terrible brood 

of the Gorgons, 
Triple-headed, hundred-handed, thousand-legged, 
Cerberus, Briareus, Hydra, Chimaira, Echidna 

the lizard ; 
What is Olympus to these, with its Gods who 

dwell in the sunshine ! 
Once in this world lived a people I loved — the 

Giants and Titans, 
Who could hurl as weapons of war huge mount- 
ains and rivers, 
Heaven itself they would storm and break down 

the limit of mortals, 
Which the Gods once set in their envy when man 

they created. 



138 HOMER IlSr CHIOS. 

Long the battle was fought, the stormers of 

heaven were vanquished, 
Now see them whirl — down, down they spin to 

Tartarus sooty, 
By the Olympians whisked off the earth-ball to 

infinite spaces, 
Where they lie under ban of falling, falling for- 
ever. 
Still in the Upperworld sunny they wrought for 

the ages great wonders ; 
This fair island, this sea, yon mountains are 

showing their power. 
Lofty, grandiloquent words are my colors, by 

which I can paint them, 
Words that are sung in mine ear by the high 

Heliconian Muses, 
Loving the mighty and monstrous and piling up 

horror on horror ' ' 

*'Hold, for mercy! " cried Homer, "let me 
catch breath for a moment. 

For I seem to be falling, falling along with your 
Titans, 

Down to black Tartarus whirling I spin in a 
spiral headforemost. 

Poet, is there no light in your world, no beauti- 
ful order?" 

Curling his lip to a scowl, responded the singer 
of Ascra : 



THE SINGEB OF ASCBA. 139 

" I cannot say that I like your Olympian sun- 
shine, Homerus, 
All of your deities stand too clear in the sweep 

of my eyesight, 
Cut into words they walk as if they w^ere moving 

to marble, 
Gods in my thought should break over bounds 

into limitless regions, 
Break over all of the forms of fair life into in- 
finite fancy. 
Give me the view far away o'er the deeps of 

Oceanus hoary, 
And his thousands of children with all the dim 

train of the sea-gods. 
Breaking, creating their shapes with every now 

dash of the wavelet, 
Eiding the steeds of the sea and leaping from 

billow to billow. 
Homer, I come to pay thee a visit once promised 

at A sera; 
And I have heard of a beautiful maiden now 

dwelling in Chios." 
"Welcome again, O friend," said Homer; 

*' some wine in a goblet, 
Speed thee Amyntas, my boy — some Chian wine 

for the poet." 

But the musical guest in response made a face 
full of discord. 
For in spite of himself he longed to behold the 
fair dauohter. 



140 HOMER I!i CHIOS. 

Disappointed, he turned once more to ttie tale of 

his terrors: 
"Dragons I love, if human, and forms of the 

sphinxes and griffons, 
Forms commingled of man and of beast, which 

sprang from the Orient. 
You, O Homer, have driven my monsters away 

to the background, 
Far in the background of Hellas they lie under 

curse of your spirit. 
Where they will stay by your spell, I fear, in 

the darkness forever. 
— No, again they will rise," spake the poet of 

Ascra prophetic, 
" Out of the night they will rise and bask in the 

sheen of Apollo, 
Far in the future I see them step to the light 

from their hiding. 
They will riot around in the world as in times of 

the Titans, 
Storming Olympus again in the might of their 

struggle for heaven. 
They will battle with Gods on the earth and the 

air and the ocean. 
Till the Underworld sunless will rumble and 

quake in its terror." 

Here a youth stepped forth, he had recently 
come from the Northland, 
Tall Hesperion, who from a dream had been 
roused by the story, 



THE SINGEB OF ASCBA. 141 

Roused by the mention of Giants, the dwellers of 

mountain and iceberg, 
Calling to mind his own far country in landscape 

and legend. 
Thus he spake in response to the poet of Ascra 

foretelling : 
" Truth you have spoken, I know it; those mon- 
sters are livinoj and thrivino; 
Just at this moment far up in the nebulous tract 

of the Northland 
Where they fight with the fire and sport with the 

frost of the icefield ; 
Mighty and massive those Giants of cold, the 

Hyperboreans, 
Never I thought I would find them here in the 

sunbeams of Hellas, 
Even in story I did not expect to be told of their 

wonders, 
Though they be sitting in Tartarus sooty, the 

cheerless, the hopeless. 
Tell me your name, O stranger, for I would 

carry it with me, 
When I return to my laud with the name and the 

song of great Homer, 
Both of you banded together shall go to ray home 

in the Northland." 

With a gleam of rude joy responded the singer 
of Ascra, 
Fame he reproached and despised and yet he 
longed to bo famous ; 



142 HOMER IN CHIOS. 

" I am culled Hesiod, younger in song than 

Homer, yet older, 
Earliest Gods I have sung and the latest of all — 

Prometheus, 
Friend of poor lost man, and the sufferer, too, for 

his goodness; 
Sufferer God-born he lay in his anguish on Cau- 
casus lonely. 
But the strange spell of m}^ life ! I cannot get 

rid of the woman ! 
On me has rested a curse, the curse of that 

charmer Pandora, 
Once created by Zeus, endowed by each God wilh 

his talent, 
Born with craft in her heart, then sent upon man 

for his evil. 
Off and away ! good Homer, I whisper the hope 

of my journey ! 
Much I have heard in my land of a girl now grown 

to a woman, 
Can I not see, perchance, now converse with the 

beautiful maiden? 
Vain is my visit to-day if I see not the daughter 

of Homer; 
More than Helen she is, aye more than the gifted 

Pandora." 

" Here comes Amyntas," said Homer, " bear- 
ing the fragrance of Chios ; 
What a perfume of the wine as he steps in the 
gate of the garden ! 



THE SINGEB OF ASCRA. 143 

Well, that boy is a flower that blooms with the 
scent of old Bacchus ! 

I can trace his path in the air without hear- 
ing his footstep. 

Drink now a cupful of tears that were shed on the 
beautiful island, 

Tears of the wine-god which tell not the sorrow 
but joy of the godhood." 

Hesiod turned up the cup, and drank off the 

vintage of Chios, 
Generous vintage of Chios, that lightens the soul 

of the singer. 
And that cup was a wonder, with figures that 

danced in a'circle. 
Forms of maidens and youths that danced in a 

ring round the wdne-cup. 
Wrought by the cunning of Chalcon the smith, and 

given to Homer, 
When in his youth he sang for the prize and won 

in the contest. 
Won the fair prize in a contest with deep-toned 

Ariston his teacher. 
So they sipped off the wine from their beakers a 

moment in silence, 
Hesiod, Homer, the great Greek singers were sip- 
ping together 
There in Chios the wine that is good for the Gods 

and us mortals. 
Good for libations to Gods and a slaking of thirst 

unto mortals. 



144: HOMER IN CIIIOS. 

boon they were done, for they loved, not the 
frenzy, but joy of the wine-god. 

"Dearest my daughter, where art thou? 

Come hither and lead me," said Homer. 
But he heard no response, so he called out again : 

Praxilla! 
What is the matter? where is the maiden? Gone 

on an errand ? 
No, she was looking just then in a dream from 

a nook of her arbor, 
Whence she could gaze on the fair-haired, blue- 
eyed youth of the Northland, 
Wondering what she would do if she weut to 

the folk of the icefields. 
Of a sudden she woke from her wonder and 

sprang to her father, 
Speaking mid blushes : *'I was not gone, behold, 

I am present." 
But the flashes of red spake louder that what 

she had spoken. 
Truer than words in telling the truth of the heart 

that is hidden. 

Then they passed from the house for a stroll 
mid the trees and the vineyard, 

All together they went — the youths, the guests 
and the maiden. 

Shady t ho roof overhead of the loaves and the 
twigs and the tendrds. 



THE SINGER OF ASCBA. 145 

Leaves of the olive with silvery sparkle in sun- 
beams of Chios, 

Tendrils of grapevines that clasped the twigs 
in tender embraces, 

Hintino; of love in a bower to hearts that are 
young, and to old ones. 

Hesiod saw with delight the beautiful daughter 
of Homer, 

Every seam of his face was illumed with the 
torches of Eros, 

Fled are the monsters aforetime, ended the battle 
of Titans, 

And the wormwood of words is turning to sweet- 
ness of honey ; 

Glances he cast on the maiden and coined them 
to lines of a poet. 

Singer of Ascra, thou hast forgotten thy tale 
of Pandora ! 

Also Typtodes beheld in a joy the daughter of 

Homer, 
For the pedagogue too was a man, though dry in 

his learning. 
Dry the vast heap of his learning, but it would 

make a great bonfire, 
If but one little spark would snap from the flamelet 

of Eros, 
Fall on the ponderous pile and suddenly set it to 



blazing. 



m 



146 HOMEE IN CHIOS. 

O Typtodes, pedagogue Chian, what arc these 

flashes ! 
Thou hast forgotten thy letters, forgotten the 

symbols Phcenician. 

So thc}^ walked and they talked till they came 

to the view of the waters, 
Wondering came they at once to the side of the 

sea everlasting 
Rolling its waves from beyond and beyond, far 

over the vision. 
Over the tremulous line where heaven and earth 

run together, 
Where the God may be seen as he comes and de- 
parts from the mortal. 
Nearest the billow that broke on the beach stood 

the maiden Praxilla, 
Just behind her with look o'er the sea stood 

youthful Hesperion. 

All of them gazed at the waves, and thought- 
fully dropped into silence, 

Seeming to peep far over the bound of the bend- 
ing horizon 

Into the realm beyond for a moment, and hear 
its low music. 

Feeling a gentle attunement of soul to the beat 
of the billows. 

Telling the pulse of the world that is coming, the 
world that is ooinof. 



THE SINGEIi OF ASCEA. 147 

List to a voice ! a herald is hurrying out of the 

city, 
Running along the white sand of the margin that 

gleamed in the sunshine; 
<' Hearken," he cried, " I announce the approach 

of the sovereign woman, 
Poetess come from the Lesbian isle to pay hom- 
age to Homer." 
" What ! a woman poetic !" broke out old Hesiod 

crabbed, 
With a twinge in his lips as if tasting his words 

that were wormwood. 
With a whirl of his fist as if fighting the Gods 

like a Titan : 
" What new evil is born to the suffering race of us 

mortals ! 
This last woman, methinks, is worse, far worse 

than the first one, 
With the gift of her verses she comes, far worse 

than Pandora." 

" Hater of woman!" quickly responded the 
daughter of Homer, 

Why are your Muses women, your own Heli- 
conian Muses ? 

Long I have known of you here, I have heard 
that tale of Pandora, 

Shameless ! you have in that tale besmirched the 
mother that bore you." 



148 HOMEB IN CHIOS. 

Off slipped the poet of Ascra through a lone 
path by the sea-shore, 

Thinking to catch some vessel awaiting the breezes 
for Hellas, 

Eager to quit the sunshine of Chios for heavy 
Boeotia, 

Leaving the Gods of Olympus, to dwell once more 
with the Titans. 

Surly he sauntered along by himself till he 
passed out of vision. 

Hapless poet of Ascra, dismissed by the daugh- 
ter of Homer. 

Meanwhile the rest of the people went back 

from the sea to the garden, 
Where they sat down on the stones which were 

scats for the guests in a circle, 
Waiting to hear the first notes of the beautiful 

songstress of Lesbos, 
And with a festival high and a hymn to receive 

her with honor. 



vm. 



The Songstress of Lesbos. 



(149) 



ARGUMENT. 

The perso7i heralded is Sappho, a poetess of the 
island of Lesbos, and ancestress of the later more fa- 
mous tSappho. She had caught from Homer the spirit 
of song in her youth, and noio she comes to tell him her 
gratitude for what he had done. She thinks that Homer, 
through his story of Helen , had helped to save all women 
of Greece, herself included, from the fate of Helen. She 
crowns Homer with a garland for his other pictures of 
noble women, those found in the Odyssey. At this point 
the daughter of Homer steps fonvard and asks Sappho 
concerning a secret. Hesperion, who has listened to the 
songstress arid lias heard her songs before, comes for- 
ward and asks a similar question. The restdt is, the 
two lovers are brought together through Sappho, the 
p)oetess of love. But they are suddenly separated by the 
learning sound of a trumpet. 



(150) 



Who could it be that had come from the 
neighboring island of Lesbos, 
Lovely island of love, and the home of the lyre 

of Hellas? 
It was Sappho, beautiful Sappho, poetess tender, 
Singing ancestress of many a Sappho still greater 

than she was, 
Sister own of the Muses, the sister too of the 

Graces, 
Breathing the heart of her sex into strains of the 

sweetest of music, 
Bearino- the beautiful name to be borne by Ium- 

children hereafter, 
Sappho, melodious Sappho, first name of the 
songstress of Hellas. 

(151) 



152 HOMEli IN CHIOS. 

Many a Lesbian woman she gave of her 

musical dower, 
Tunefully sharing the gift of her song to the soul 

'that might need it, 
All of them singing of love with the joy, the 

triumph, the sorrow. 
Tasting the magical drop which wings with a word 

the sweet senses — 
Lesbian bees that lit on each beautiful flower 

of nature, 
Busily culling in song the bitter-sweet honey of 

passion. 
Sappho already had sung for the prize in a 

contest with Homer, 
Years agone that was, when she was the bloom 

of a morning, 
But when he was a noonday turning and looking 

to sundown. 
Both of them sang before judges — the prize was 

a new-made tripod, 
Fashioned to life by Chalcon with dexterous 

strokes of the hammer, 
That it seemed ready to step and to walk while 

standing forever. 
High and mighty the judges taken from lords 

of the islands. 
And from rulers of cities on mainland, all of 

them greybeards ; 
Rigid and just they were deemed in settling dis- 
putes of the people. 



THE ISONUSTRESS OF LESBOS. 153 

Rigid and just were the judges, and still she had 

won before singing. 
See but the gleam of her eye, no furrow of frost 

can resist it ! 
Every heart she had won by her look, and away 

went the tripod; 
She herself was the song that sang more sweetly 

than Homer, 
Love and beauty were hers while singing of love 

and of beauty. 
She was the prize herself, the prize of the Gods 

to the winner. 
No true Greek could ever behold her, not hoping 

possession. 
So the tripod she easily won from the first of 

the poets. 
By the decree of the judges, whose law she took 

in her triumph, 
Took too the hearts of the greybeards along, 

and they could not help it ; 
Homer himself in their place had not given 

another decision. 
Homer had turned against Homer, had he been 

one of the judges. 

But to-day she harbored no thought to tell of 
that triumph, 
Rather ashamed she was, for she knew the power 
that gave it. 



154 HOMEll IN CHIOS. 

Years had brouo-ht to her life the orolden return 

O O 

of their harvest, 
Still not chilliuo; the warmth and the glow of the 

Lesl^ian summer. 
Not too young in her folly, not too old in her 

wisdom, 
Almost repentant her spirit looked out on the 

world from its windows, 
Casting its glances adown as if it had a con- 
fession. 
Stately she moved, yet modest, into the presence 

of Homer; 
Courteous welcome he gave to the songstress, 

when she began speaking. 
Not in her own soft cadence, but tuned to the 

sweep of his measures: 

"Thee, O fatherly singer, I come to visit in 

Chios, 
Chios, thy beautiful island, fair sister it is to my 

Lesbos ; 
I would behold thee once more in the living form 

of thy features, 
Ere thou pass to Elysian fields, last home of the 

poets. 
Who shall dwell as spirits beyond in the house of 

their genius, 
House of high fantasy built, material stronger 

than granite. 



THE SONGSTRESS OF LESBOS. 155 

Holding eternal the echo of musical strains of the 
singer. 

There among thine own Heroes, there abiding 
forever, 

Thou the Hero shalt bethysclf — in the deed the 
first Hero ; 

For of all thy great people of song, thou sing- 
ing art greatest, 

Sinking high actions of men thine action itself is 
the highest. 

There I too, a poet mid happy Elysian meadows, 

Hope in the sound of thy song with thee to he 
living immortal. 

But to-day I have come once more in the sun- 
shine to listen, 

I would hear thee again this side of the pitiless 
earth-stream. 

And would speak thee a word — not to thee but 
to me it is needful, 

Brinsins thy soul nearer mine — the word of 
sweet recognition." 

" Aye, it is sweet, that word," interrupted the 

poet good-humored, 
*' Even to age it is sweet, for myself I do not 

deny it ; 
More I would hear of thy strain, so deftly thou 

turnest thy measures." 

Seeing herself reflected in Homer, the song- 
stress continued : 



156 HOMER IN CHIOS. 

" Long ago I first heard thee attune the high lay 

in my Lesbos, 
I was a girl in my home, and thou wert a wan- 
dering minstrel. 
Who went singing through Hellas the wrath of 

the Hero Achilles, 
Singing the fateful, dolorous tale of the beautiful 

woman. 
Wandering, singing, and tuning thy song to the 

hearts of the Hellenes. 
Helpful thou spakest to me in the bloom and the 

peril of girlhood, ^ 

Mighty thy voice in my heart just then in the 

struggle of woman ; 
At thy command my soul was set free and broke 

forth into measures. 
Irresistible measures of long-ino; in Lesbian music. 
Secretly sang I my earliest notes to a circle of 

maidens. 
Who would listen and love along with the tender 

vibrations. 
Singing the stiaius of the song and touching the 

strings of the cithern. 
That was after I heard thee hymning the story of 

Helen, 
How she was blmded and sank in the spell of 

sweet Aphrodite, 
Though the Goddess she fought and rated with 

heavy reproaches ; 



THE SONGSTBESS OF LESBOS. 157 

How by Paris of Troy she then was led from her 

husband, 
Going, unwilling to go, and yielding though 

always refusing, 
Driving the Trojan away, yet drawing him back 

by denial, 
No was the word of her tongue, but Yes the 

response of her action." 

Here she stopped for a moment and looked 

abashed at her daring, 
Thought unspoken when born into speech has in 

it a demon. 
Who oft leaps from the sound of the word and 

frightens the speaker, 
Till the courage returns to speak out the heart 

of the matter. 
Poetess was the Lesbian, having the right to her 

color. 
Having the duty to utter the truth of herself in 

her singing; 
Warm were the tones and strong were the tints 

of the thoughts that she painted ; 
Though her words seemed growing forbidden, 

courageous began she : 
"Must I confess it? Helen I felt in myself at 

that moment ! 
All of the bliss and the blight of her love swept 

over my heart strings. 



158 HOMEB IN CHIOS. 

Touching them lightly at first, then smiting them 

harder and harder, 
As if I were a lyre by lingers of Fates to be 

played on, 
Thrilling to music the ebb and the flow of the 

ocean within me, 
Making the billowy passion sing to a measure 

responsive ! 
Willing unwilling, fated yet free, to myself but 

a battle ! 
Yes, I confess, the Goddess I felt, the Goddess 

resistless. 
Driving me forward to do as did the beautiful 

woman. 
Whispering dulcet commands in words of divin- 
ity's power. 
Yet Aphrodite but spoke to what was within me 

already, 
Willing, unwilling, fated yet free — ye Gods, how 

she smote me ! 
Till through the cleft of my heart I could see 

down, down to its bottom! 
With the prize of the fairest, the penalty too has 

been given. 
With the beautiful women is chained the spite of 

a Fury, 
Who doth secretl}^ lurk in the gift of the Gods to 

the mortal. 
But I stand not alone, for all I now stand in thy 

presence : 



THE SONGSTRESS OF LESBOS. 159 

Every wife in Lesbos, in Chios, in all the Greek 

islands, 
And on mainland too, through Hellas, through 

midland of Argos, 
Far in the isles of the West and over the sea to 

the sundown, 
Has that danger of Helen, the lapse of the soul 

in its loving, 
With the vengeance that follows the joy and the 

glory of beauty. 
In thy story a witness I was of all that I might 

be, 
Saw the dread ghost of myself and fled from the 

horrible specter ! 
Homer, my father, thou hast saved me from be- 
ing a Helen, 
In thy song thou hast suffered and saved all men 

and all women 
Winning thy soul to themselves in its story of 

trial and rescue. 
I had been taken to Troy, if thy word had never 

been spoken. 
All the daughters of Greece tiiou hast rescued 

from fleeing with Paris, 
Though his city has fallen, again he had come to 

Achsea, 
Were it not that thy song keeps the warning alive 

and the judgment. 
Tro}' still stands in the world and holds in its 

citadel Helen, 



160 H03IEB IN CHIOS. 

Only in song, thy song, is it taken forever, O 
Homer." 

There she stopped on the height of her thought, 
the Lesbian songstress, 

Whence she could see far over the sky-bound 
limit of Hellas ; 

Soon in sweet low tones responded the poet 
prophetic : 
"Gracious words thou hast spoken and dear to 
me, beautiful woman; 

Singing the peril of beauty in soft, warm words 
of thy measures ; 

Muse among Muses the tenth for thy strain hence- 
forth I shall name thee, 

Aye, for thy love the tenth Muse I shall name 
thee to nations hereafter. 

Who thy honor will sing beyond the far streams 
of the Ocean, 

First of the women of Hellas to build the melo- 
dious poem, 

Chastely chanting thy lay to the wives and maid- 
ens of Lesbos. 

Thou wilt be followed by thousands of songsters 
along down the ages. 

Thine is the musical prelude of forests of night- 
ingales singing. 

Women preserve the story and song as they 
nourish their infants, 



TEE SONGSTRESS OF LESBOS. 161 

Who must be reared on the voice as well as the 

milk of the mother; 
Nature makes her sing, she must die or sing to 

her baby ; 
Motherly harmony is her first gift to her child, 

and the greatest. 
What a world I see rising before me, the world 

of the woman ! 
Beautiful Helen again shall be sung, aye, more, 

she shall sing too, 
Taking herself Troy town, not conquered but 

conquering Paris; 
She shall be the new Hero Achilles, in action 

heroic, 
Gods ! as I see I must speak ! she also shall be 

the new Homer." 

Down fell the word like a blow, surprising 

even the speaker, 
Who by the spur prophetic was driven beyond 

his own knowledge ; 
But on the spot she snatched up the talk, that 

Lesbian songstress. 
For she still had a weight on her heart to be 

lifted by s})eaking: 
" How we look at ourselves in thy tale of the 

beautiful woman ! 
Our warm heart thou hast felt, its ready response 

and the peril. 

11 



162 HOMEB IN CHIOS. 

All our circle is drawn, the trial, the fall and the 

sorrow, 
Then the return of the soul, the rise and the 

grand restoration ; 
Helen estranged is restored to her own, restored 

to herself too. 
In her marvelous tale I can see the past and the 

future. 
All the life of our people unfold to the story 

of Helhis. 
But still more than Hellas I watch in the lines of 

her image : — 
This whole round of existence on earth, hard 

destiny human, 
With the rise and the drop in the struggle of good 

and of evil. 
Now on the up and now on the down of the life- 
stroke eternal, 
Measuring cycles of pain and of gain to the beat 

of the master." 

Jlere she ■ stopped for a moment, lost in the 

reach of her thinking, 
Which ran over the bounds of her speech in the 

stress of her spirit; 
Soon again she came back to herself and spoke 

Greek unto Homer : 
"Not alone the rise from the fall, thy beautiful 

Helen, 



THE SONGSTRESS OF LESBOS. 163 

But the woman unfallen is also thy gift to us 

womcu — 
She who never could lapse from herself in trial 

the sorest. 
Now let me crown thy brow with this wreath for 

Penelope faithful, 
For Arete, the mother, who dwells in the heart 

of her household, 
For Nausicaa too, the maid of all maidens for- 
ever. 
Take this gift from thy children, thou art the 

father of Hellas ! 
Which has been born to thy song and trained to 

tlie step of thy music, 
Which will go singing thy strains down Time, in 

joy and in sorrow. 
With the echo repeating itself in all nations, O 

Homer." 

Thus spake Sappho, the soft-speaking Sappho, 

sweet Lesbian songstress, 
Graceful she stepped, and loving she laid on his 

temples the garland, 
Plucked by lier hand and wove to a crown of the 

leaves of the laurel. 
Echoing shouts of approval rang back from the 

hills and the sea-shore, 
Even the wavelets, trying to walk, had come up 

to the bank-side. 



164 HOMEB IN CHIOS. 

Trying to talk had murmured afar their billowy 
answer. 

Sweetly the rhythm she spoke, her spirit had 
caught it from Homer, 

And the heroic hexameter yielded to lips of a 
woman, 

Tamed by her gentle caress into lines of mel- 
lifluous movement, 

Tliough it was used to the clangor and clash of 
the onset of battle. 

Now the poet has heard in tenderest tones of the 
songstress. 

Touched with Lesbian tints, the tune of his own 
mighty measure 

Softened quite to the whisper of love in its deli- 
cate cadence, 

Sung in praise of himself for singing the praises 
of woman. 

Showing her highest worth, not sparing her blame- 
ful in error. 

Fairest reward of the bard, when he harks to the 
heart of his verses 

Beating out of a bosom that throbs in a joy to his 
music. 

Flowing from lips that he loves, like a soft suc- 
cession of kisses. 

But behold ! another fair woman steps up to 
the front-line. 



THE SONGSTRESS OF LESBOS. '^^^ 

Forward she moves to lliat presence, it is the 

daughter of Homer, 
Who in a gleam of her sunshine embraces the 

songstress of Lesbos, 
And then speaks In low tones what her looks al- 
ready are telling: 
" Thou hast uttered the word of my heart to thy 

music, O Sappho, 
Word which often has beaten the wall of my lips 

for dclivrance, 
Always in vain, for left to myself I never can 

say it ; 
But in the warmth of thy speech I can feel the 

hot beat of my bosom. 
And that struggle of thine and of Helen's has 

sung me my battle. 
Deep is the joy of my soul, and yet I have with 

it a trembling, 
I have given myself all away, and yet I must 

keep me, 
Sweet is every moment of life, and yet it is 

bitter. 
What is this riddle of pleasure in pain and of 

pain in pleasure? 
Would I might fly from myself, and yet to my- 
self I would fly then. 
. Tell me the great surrender which will restore me 
my freedom, 
Speak it again, the magical word, the word of my 
weal now, 



166 HOMEB IN CHIOS. 

Overmaking me wholly iu hopo of the time of 

my ransom. 
I would bathe in the stream of thy song as in 

waters of healing, 
At thy voice my fall heart which before had been 

closed, is open, 
Like the flower which bursts at the breath of the 

spring from its bud-coat, 
Still unwilling to show at first what is hid in its 

bosom." 

What does this mystery mean which lurks in 
the speech of the maiden? 

Not quite clear to herself is the meaning of what 
she has uttered ; 

Nearer the Lesbian songstress she drew, confid- 
ing in glances, 
, Then in a whisper she spake, the beautiful daugh- 
ter of Homer, 

Clinging to Sappho, soft-speaking Sappho, the 
helper of love-pain: 

" Tell me the story once more thou hast told so 
often already, 

I can hear it again from thy lips and never grow 
weary, 

I would hearken thy heart and live in the strains 
of its music; 

Sappho, O Sappho, what is this love of the youth 
and the maiden. 



THE SONQSTBESS OF LESBOS. 1G7 

Which thou singest in hundreds of songs to the 
s6norous cithern?" 

Scarce had ended the speech when both were 

aware of another 
Who had entered their thought and stood by 

himself in their presence; 
Both looked hastily up, it was the fair youth 

of the Northland 
Ready to speak, and his glances held the two 

women asunder, 
Since the one of them blushed, and the other 

drew back in amazement; 
Warm was his accent, though neither Ionic, 

^olic, nor Doric; 
Well he could say what he wanted and spake 

to the Lesbian songstress : 
" Thou hast uttered the word of my heart to thy 

music, O Sappho; 
I a stranger am here from afar, from the realm 

of the fiost-gods, 
Thy warm breath I have felt as it wafted in words 

from thy poems, 
All the winter within me has melted, and I am 

the summer. 
Tender summer of Hellas attuned to tlie lyre of 

Lesbos. 
All the ice of the North to-day thou hast thawed 

from my bosom. 



168 HO 31 Eli IN CIIIOIS, 

As thou toldest thy tale in the tale of the beauti■^ 

fill woman; 
Helen I was myself, and I sank in the spell 

of her passion, 
But I was also her spouse, to Troy I would 

march for my Helen; 
Aye, the Greek I must win, or myself I shall 

lose forever." 

Here he stopped for a sigh, then passed to 
an undertone softly : 

" What is this fearful joy, and yet an agony 
with it 

Which allows no rest in the pain that is born 
of its pleasure? 

Sweet is every moment of life, and yet it is bit- 
ter ; 

I had given myself all away, before I had known 
it; 

Tell me the cause of this hungering lingering 
lonoiiig for something — 

CO ~ 

Sappho, O Sappho, what is this love of the youth 

and maiden, 
Which thou singest in hundreds of songs to the 
sonorous cithern? " 

Smiling she touched the amorous chords with 
the tip of her finger. 
Softly preluding the tones which turned into 
words in her answer: 



THE SONOSTBESS OF LESBOS. 169 

" Both of 3^011 have the same pain, and ])oth of 

you hnve the same pleasure, 
Both of jou sing the one song which runs to the 

very same ending ; 
Even the words of your lips I notice are pairing 

together, 
Yes, young people, I think I can tell you concern- 
ing this matter, 
Old is the tale to the old, yet ever is new to the 

youthful. 
But to the poet it never can wear off the gleam 

of its freshness. 
Much in myself I have studied the cause and the 

cure of this trouble ; 
What in lono-ino; is sighino; asunder, the word 

brings together. 
Hear rae, then, both of you, daughter of Homer 

and son of the Northland : 
Two are still twain and in pain, who were born 

to be one and one only. 
Give me two hands — I shall join them to one in 

mine own at a heart-beat." 

Sappho set down her sonorous shell, to the pair 

she drew nearer, 
Till between them she stood and secretly reached 

out on both sides. 
Took two hands in her own and l.iid them willins: 

together. 



170 HOMER IK CHIOS. 

Wliicli of themselves, with a grip like Fate, were 
cLisped in a promise, 

While the eyes at each other shot fiery ratifica- 
tion. 

Meantime the songstress was chanting a lay of 
the doings of Eros, 

Singing for others she sang to relieve her own 
heart of its travail. 

For the old wound, broken open, could only be 
stanched by the love-song. 

Hark! the sound of a trumpet rolls over the 

hills in the distance ! 
What can it mean, interrupting this moment of 

y^y hy a startle? 
There ! once more it is rolling, it sends on its 

waves a light shudder. 
Each let go the firm grip of the hand iu the shock 

of the warning. 

But the daughter has gone and whispered aside 
to her father ; 

What did she say to him there as she leaned to 
his ear with her blushes? 

Joyful he was at the word and louder he spoke 
than a whisper : 

"Happy I am — I have it foreseen — let me 
pledge you together ; 

Sorrowful too — ye both have to leave me be- 
hind — leave Hellas : 



THE SONGSTBESS OF LESBOS. 171 

Still I feel you will take me along to the land of 

the future, 
Aje, you will take our Hellas along and preserve 

it forever." 

Louder, nearer, sterner, resounded the blast of 

the trumpet, 
Bearing command it seemed and bidding to wait 

for the message ; 
Still no person appeared, but a ruler was surely 

behind it, 
For authority spoke unworded in tones of the 

trumpet, 
Strangely attuned to the roll of the thunder, the 

voice of the Heavens. 

In response to the note of forewarning spake 

Homer prophetic: 
" Nay, not yet, not yet — the tie is not yet to be 

fastened. 
First this flame must be curbed and subdued to 

the oracle coming, 
Else it will burn down the world, like Troy, in a 

grand conflagration; 
No more Helens — one Helen is surely enough 

for all ages — 
Bravely renounce the sweet thought, and prove 

yourselves worthy, renouncing; 
Bravely renounce and renounce till the law hath 

declared its fulfillment." 



172 IIOMKJt IN CHIOS. 

Loiulor roHpondod to Homer ilio bl:ist of llic 

ominous trumpcj;, 
Louder, nearer it rolled and mingled its souml 

with his scntcncG. 
As if civiniT tho stren}ji;th of its stroke to the 

DO o 

words of tho poet, 
Who still addcul l)is warning- to soids that might 

bo impatient: 
<♦ Something else is announced, the ])est is lo 

wait for the message; 
It is near — tho tramp can be heard — now wait 

for the message." 



IX. 



The Psalmist of Israel. 



(173) 



ARGUMENT. 

■ David, King of Israel, conies to visit Homer, having 
heard the songs of the Greek poet sung by Mesander, born 
in Cyprus, a Hellene and a representative of his race, 
the Hellenes (^pronounced as tivo syllables) among Semi- 
tic peoples — Phcenicians and Hebrews. The two great 
poets sing for each other, and in their songs they give 
the Greek and the Hebrew views of the world. The po- 
ems of Homer and the psalms of David have just been 
written in the neio alj)habet of Phoenician letters; Typ- 
todes and Afesander have copies of the two works. 
David and Homer sing several times, each recognizes 
the greatness and worth of the other. They become warm 
friends, as from Chios they look out upon the future to 
the westivard. Hesperian and Praxilla are betrothed, 
and King David stays to take part in celebrating the 
marriage on the morrow. 



(174) 



Suddenly after the sound of the trumpet that 

rolled from the mountain 
Followed a wave of deep voices of song that 

swayed to the sea-swell, 
Choirini; in tune to the strings of the harp and 

the tones of the timbrel, 
Mid the clash of the cymbals and drum, and the 

clangor of cornets. 
Loudly preluding new strains to be joined to the 

music of Hellas, 
First to-day, where rises melodious Chios in 

billows, 
Chios, the beautiful island, whose eye is the gar- 
den of Homer. 
Slowly a caravan wound through sinuous turns 

of the mountain, 

(175) 



176 HOMER IN CHIOS. 

Shone as it rolled into vision out of the azure 

horizon ; 
Over the hilltops it heaved, it seemed to be hung 

from the heavens ! 
Gaily it glistened afar with the gleam of its gold 

and its purple ; 
Precious stones of the East, the onyx, the opal, 

the diamond. 
Peeped with a thousand eyes from the front of 

the column advancing. 
Peeped and sparkled and shot in a dance with the 

sunbeams of Chios. 

*' What high pomp of a monarch is that and 

where is he going ? ' ' 
Each one asked of his neighbor, who gave no re- 
sponse to the question, 
For he knew nothing to say, but stood and gazed 

in his wonder. 
Statelier moved the procession while nearer it 

came, still nearer, 
Till it had reached to the door where inside was 

sitting Homerus, 
Sitting not far from the hearth by the altar he 

made for the Muses, 
With his soul in a song he sat there and heard 

what was coming. 

Royally rode forth a man, dismounted and 
stood at the entrance, 



THE PS.iLMISr OF ISRAEL. 177 

All the radiant train of his followers with him 
dismounted ; 

What a spangle of gems and twinkle of jewels 
like starlio;ht I 

Dark was the eye and crispy the hair and l)ro\vn 
the complexion, 

Strong was the curve of the nose of the King, 
like the beak of an eagle, 

As it darts from its fastness of rock on the cow- 
ering rabbit. 

Yet how soft lay his lip underneath the tierce 
hook of the nostrils 

As if nought but compassion he knew, and could 
utter love only ! 

Merciful downward to earth and prayerful up- 
ward to heaven 

Ran his glances, while under them glowed the tire 
of his daring. 

In a lofty obeisance he raised up finger to fore- 
head. 

Jeweled lightnings leaped from his hand to the 
eyes of beholders, 

Making them blink in the flash, and answer the 
sport of the sparkles. 

Then he murmured low tones of a something in 
syllables foreign, 

To the man who stood at his side, and who 
seemed to be waiting, 

Eager to let the fountain of speech gush u[) to 
the sunlight. 

13 



178 HOMER IN CHIOS. 

That was a different man from the rest of the 

men of the Monarch; 
Not the same turn of the features he had, and not 

the same stature ; 
He was named Mesander — the versatile, clear- 
toned Mesander, 
Kuower of speech, reconciler of men, interpreter 

famous, 
He was the tono;ue of the King who bade him tell 

of the journey. 
Hark! he is speaking, now list to his voice! his 

words are Hellenic ! 
Thus he spoke in the rhythm and speech familiar 

to Homer: 

" Hail to thee, poet, thou song of the West, 

and also its prophet! 
Humbly we pray thee to give us to-day a glimpse 

of thy treasures. 
And of our own we gladly shall grant whdt we 

can in requital. 
This high Monarch has heard thy strains in the 

home of his people, 
Over the roar of the seas, beyond Phoenician 

Sidon, 
Where dwells Israel's seed in the holy land of 

Judea. 
In his palace he listened with pain to the sorrows 

of Priam, 
Deeply forefeeling in Troy and its fall the fate 

of liis city, 



THE PSALMIST OF ISRAEL. 179 

Sacred Jerusalem, set on a hill by good Abraham's 

children. 
Also he followed in hope the devious path of 

Ulysses, 
In whose return he beheld the return of his peo- 
ple from bondage, 
When they fled through the sea and the wilderness 

drear out of Egypt. 
High beat the wish in his heart and rose to a 

longing resistless, 
Thee to behold, the singer of Hellas — he too is 

a singer — 
Ere the dark Fates of Death shall clutch thee and 

hale thee to Hades. 
He has stepped down from his throne to pay 

thee a visit of honor. 
Leaving his own far away, he has come to the 

country of Javan , 
Turning the point of his law, which keeps him 

aloof from the stranger. 
Greatest of musical Hellenes, thou, the voice of 

the Muses 
Singing forever down time and making thy lan- 
guage eternal, 
Homer, before thee stands Israel's sovereign, 

singer, King David." 

Such were the words of Mesander, the em- 
bassy's eloquent spokesman, 
He in Cyprus was born, and long he had lived 
with Phoenicians, 



180 HOMEE IN CHIOS. 

Learning their maiuicrs and speech, when he 

came as sailor to Sidon ; 
Also lie traded with Tyre, when Hiram was king 

of the country, 
Hiram, the King of rich Tyre, the friend and 

ally of David. 
Skillful in talking the tongues, Mesander had 

seen many nations. 
Noting the merits of each, he spoke the language 

of concord, 
Artful in dealing with men, he wns often chosen 

as envoy. 
Wandering over the world, as interpreter came 

ho to Jewry, 
Even a poet he was and doubly was dear to King 

David. 
But he remained a good Greek, although he was 

born on the border, 
Quite on the line where Shem and Japhet have 

fought for dominion 
All throuo;h the a^os, and minii:;led in battle the 

blood of their children. 
Greek though he was, Mesander partook of them 

both in his S[)irit, 
Sought to keep peace between the combative 

souls of the brothers, 
Soua;ht to midie each understand tlie greatness 

and worth of the other. 
Deftly uniting the East and the West in the 

truth that is common. 



TUE PSALMIST OF ISRAEL. 181 

Good was the Greek and yet he was vahi, the 

showy Mesandcr 
Called by the envious Hebrew, although beloved 

by King David ; 
Vain of his gift he was, of his gift in the tonanies 

and in song too. 
How he would strut when he made a good speech, 

or perchance a good ver.selet ! 
He could put on more airs than David and Homer 

together. 

When Mesander had spoken, the King looked 
around for a moment ; 

Lo ! he is stopped in his look, he is caught in the 
glance of fair Sappho, 

Tranced by her face and her figure he cried : 
" What a beautiful: woman ! 

How would she like to appear in my palace, a 
daughter of Israel, 

Aye, a wife to the King, and a light of Greek 
beauty to Hebrews! " 

Sappho looked on the ground, she knew the lan- 
guage of glances, 

Sappho knew the language of love, even when it 
is silent, 

Though she did not understand the Hebrew, the 
language of David, 

And Mesander kept still, for he honored the Les- 
bian songstress. 



182 HOMER IN CHIOS. 

Then to the words of Israel's Monarch re- 
sponded Homerus, 

" Welcome, O friend, to the isles of the sea, to . 
the land of fair Hellas, 

Enter my garden and home, to me thou shalt be 
as a brother ! 

Thy great name I have heard, it was borne from 
the realm of Phoenicians, 

By the Tyrian princes who trade in their ships 
with Greek merchants. 

Sweet though faint is the shred of thy song in the 
land of Achseans, 

Floating over the sea from the East to the tune 
of the sunrise. 

How I have longed to list to yowv Muses, so lofty, 
so holy ! 

Now the moment has come ere I pass into pitiless 
Hades ; 

Oft in my heart I have felt you had something I 
had not, but needed. 

Strike the harp ! sing the song ! one burst of your 
heavenly music ! 

And of 3'our God I would know through melo- 
dious lips of his servant, 

For we all have need of the God, be he one, be 
he many. 

Dwelling in man and the world, over Hellas en- 
throned or Judea. 

Tell me the story of trials I heard concerning 
your people. 



THE PSAL3IIST OF ISRAEL. 183 

As from bondage it fled with its God from the 

land of the Nile-stream ; 
That, niethinks, is the story of man, to be tokl 

him forever. 
Oft repeating itself in his life and the life of the 

nations. 
We the Greeks have also divinely been put under 

training, 
Throuofh sore trial our Gods have tested the love 

of their people, 
Tested onr mettle Hellenic to do the grand task 

of the ages ; 
Over to Troy we went and we fought ten years 

for our heirshii), 
Asia we had to assail that we save our beautiful 

Helen." 

Then the dark king of the East laid off his gar- 
ments of purple. 

And a golden harp he took from the hand of its 
holder, 

Harp of ten strings to which he chanted the 
praise of Jehovah. 

Also his voice he essayed in a caroling upward 
and downward; 

Sweet were the tones which he rapi<lly touched 
in the strains of his prelude, 

Soft were the notes which he secretly hummed 
to himself for the trial, 



181 HOMEE IN CHIOS. 

Gently he glided to words, that wedded the 

tender vibrations, 
Making the measures of song which skillful 

Mesander translated. 
Homer hearkened, laying his soul to the lips of 

King David, 

Who sang Israel's strain till it filled the fair 

garden of Chios : 

> 

"Happiest nation of nations I sing, whose 

God is Jehovah; 
Blessed forever and ever the people whom He 

hath chosen. 
Looking down from the heavens the children of 

men He beholdeth, 
Israel's children He loves, but His law is the law 

of the nations. 
Praise Him, my soul, the one holy God, He is the 

Almighty; 
Praise Him, the King of the Kings, the Monarch 

of earth and of heaven, 
Whose thoughts are a great deep, and His right- 
eousness like a great mountain; 
Trust in the Lord and do good, for He laughs at 

the cunning of evil, 
Its keen sword, when drawn against Him, shall 

pierce its own bosom. 
He is the law of the world, which to men He has 

mightily given, 



THE rSALMIST OF I SUAE L. 185 

He is the law of the world, and He is also the 
judgment. 

List to His voice as it speaketh aloud in the roll 
of the thunder, 

See Him fold up the sea in His hand like a gar- 
ment of waters, 

Hark how the cedars of Lebanon crash in the 
breath of His anger ! 

Hark to His law, ye nations: No other God is 
before me." 

In the might of his mood sang the King high 

strains of his language. 
Which Mesander the spokesman turned to the 

speech of Homerus; 
To the hexameter's swing he broke the wild 

cadence of Hebrew, 
Tuning Israel's heavenly flight to the tread of a 

heathen, 
Training in bounds of Greek measure the sweep 

of divine aspiration. 
Oft he had done so before, and now he would 

peep in a scroll there. 
Made of a papery rind of Egyptian reeds from 

the Nile fens, 
Which he held in his hand, scratched over and 

over with scribblings, 
Curious mystical signs which seemed to whisper 

in secret, 



186 HOMER IN CHIOS. 

Only by him understood was the talk of tliose 

signs and their meaning, 
Still their voice was not heard, for they talked in 

a flash to his eyesight. 

But at last he raised up his eyes and folded his 

writing, 
And in a glow he spoke, that Grecian of Cyprus, 

to Homer : 
" Give him the roar of thy seas, as they rise like 

learian billows. 
Give him the swell of thy heart as it heaves in 

the height of the battle. 
Give him the roll of thy measures in waves of the 

blue Hellespontus ; 
O Mffionides, sing him thy Zeus, the God of the 

Hellenes, 
Father whose children are Gods who come with 

their help to us mortals. 
Sands of the desert below, and glories of Heaven 

above us 
He has sung — now give him thy concord of man 

and the world here, 
Give him thy concert of Earth and Olympus, 

divine and the human, 
And for thee I shall do what for him I have 

done — translate thee." 

Softly Homer began with a prayer that fell 
into measures: 



THE rSAL3IIST OF ISIiAEL. 187 

*'Zeus, high father of Gods and of men, Olym- 
pian father ! 

Son thyself of old Cronus, consumer of all of his 
children, 

Thou has escaped from his maw and dethroned 
thy pitiless parent. 

Who would be all to himself in the world, with- 
out even ofFs])ring. 

Hear me, O Zeus, mo the mortal, but loving thy 
worship and order ! 

Not by thyself dost thou rule from the top of 
snowy Olympus, 

Highest of all thy gifts thou dost share unto 
others — thy godhood. 

Many divinities sit in a circle majestic around 
thee, 

Gods and goddesses too are thy sons and thy 
beautiful daughters, 

Whom thou hast raised to thy heights and with 
thee hast made to be rulers, 

Rulino; the air and the earth and even the under- 
world sunless. 

Ruling the man in his deed and also his inner- 
most spirit. 

Still thou art ever the first among many, in mind 
and in power. 

And in authority over the Gods thou art surely 
the sovereign. 

Let any deify dare to question thy might for a 
moment, 



188 HOMEli IN CHIOS. 

Down to black Tartarus whirls lie to sit with the 
hopeless Titans." 

Skillful Mesander now did his best to turn this 

to Hebrew, 
Toning a word here and there to suit the fine car 

of King David, 
Fitting to music the thought, as it flowed from 

the heart of the singer; 
But in spite of his skill, the translation ran rough 

in hard places. 
Free Greek speech would not always dance to 

the tune of Semitic, 
Homer's hexameters broke in the back at the 

gait of the psalm-song, 
And the Monarch would scowl when he heard of 

the Gods in the plural. 
Yet he would smile to himself at the noise about 

beautiful Helen, 
For the God of the King must be one, though his 

wives may be many; 
Gods of the Greek may be many, his wife is the 

one, the one only, 
Whom to save he is ready to fight ten years with 

the Orient. 

Sly Typtodes had slipped up behind and 
peeped into the papers 
Which the interpreter held in his hand when his 
reading had ended ; 



THE PSALMIST OF ISRAEL. 189 

Theubegauto adtlrcss him in whispers the peda- 
gogue prying: 

" What is that script wliich I see, that strange 
miraculous scribbling? 

Have you too the mystical writ of symbols 
Phoenician ? 

Mighty it will be forever, preserving both David 
and Homer, 

Rescued f i-om sounds of the voice and fixed into 
si^ns for the vision. 

And the schoolmaster now will have work in 
each now generation, 

Teaching the name and the shape and the sound 
of the wonderful letters. 

Till they together be put into words, the holders 
of all things. 

Then the pupil will spell out the deed and the 
thought of aforetime. 

Spurred by the sprig of the laurel held in the 
hand of the teacher. 

That I call progress, that is the march of man- 
kind to the better ! 

Nor will it stop till every youth in the land knows 
the letters. 

Every youth in the world must know the Phoe- 
nicians symbols." 

Ere Typtodes had done, strong currents had 
drowned out his whisper, 



190 HOMEIt IN CHIOS. 

Strong loud currents of song that rose from the 

throat of the singer, 
Overflowing all bounds of the sea when the tide 

runs the highest, 
And it came from the fathomless heart of Israel's 

psalmist : 
"Praised be Jehovah, in Him is our trust, the 

God of our Fathers, 
From everlasting to evcrlastino; He is the ruler ! 
In the land of Egypt we toiled and we wept in 

our sorrow, 
Slaves were Jacob's children, but they were 

never forgotten. 
From the slime of the Nile we fled to the shore 

of the Red Sea, 
Always we saw a great hand reach out of the 

cloud round about us, 
Smiting the chains of our bondage and pointing 

the way of our rescue. 
Through the walls of the waters we crossed dry- 
shod on the bottom, 
Long in the wilderness forward and backward in 

trial we wandered, 
Till we returned to our home, the primitive home 

of our Fathei'S, 
Bearing the law in our hearts, which was given in 

thunders at Sinai. 
Sing, O my soul, the high song, the return to 

the land of our promise, 



THE PSALMIST OF ISRAEL. 191 

Sing it for me and for mine, and for wandering 

millions hereafter, 
Millions on millions unborn, the countless sons of 

the future." 

As he ended he turned to Hesperion, child of 

the Northland, 
Into whose shadowy semblance he peered in a 

wonder while singing. 
For that youth had the face among faces which 

look at the speaker, 
Drawing him always secretly back to the spell of 

its gazes, 
Back to itself it draws him, unconscious of magical 

power. 
Showing him dreamlike glimpses of something 

afar that is coming. 
Thus the youth of the North attracted the look 

of King David, 
Who seemed glancing into futurity throned in 

that visage. 
Far-off futurity throned in the visage of dreamful 

Hesperion, 
As he stood there beside the beautiful daughter 

of Homer, 
Who all the future had read in the soft blue eyes 

of the stranger. 
Dreamful Hesperion, lately arrived from the 

snows of the Northland. 



192 HOMEE IN CHIOS. 

* 

Soon the poet of Hellas began once more full 

of fervor, 
Gently attuning his note somewhat to the music 

of David : 
" Singor, thou art of the East, but thy strain 

belongs to the West too, 
In it I hear the same voice that to me is the voice 

of the Muses, 
By whose help I also have sung the return of my 

people. 
That was the sad return of the haughty victori- 
ous Argives, 
Coming from Troy in their ships to their homes 

on island and mainland; 
Many were lost through wrath of the Gods, but 

the faithful were rescued, 
Though the path was doubtful and long that lay 

on the waters. 
Lately I finished the tale which tells the return of 

Ulysses, 
Who on the passionate sea had to wander with 

foolish companions; 
Much he endured in his heart, and much he 

doubted in spirit, 
Till he came back to his Ithacan home, to Pene- 
lope prudent, 
Where in peace he dwelt till the Fates had spun 

out his life-thread. 
Great the return of Israel, hymning itself in all 

peoples, 



THE FSALMIST OF ISliAEL. I'Jo 

Great the return of Achaea, which also will not 

be forgotten. 
Different may be our speech, but one at last is 

the meaning, 
Different may be our blood, but it all responds to 

one heart-beat. 
Different may be our Gods, but the Man is the 

same in us both here." 

Spoken the winged word, uprose divinely 

Homerus, 
Reaching out with his fingers, he felt for the 

hand of King David, 
Trip-hammer strokes of his heart beating time 

to the voice of the Muses: 
" Mortals may blame the Gods for their ill, but 

it is their own folly. 
Through themselves they must perish, ere Gods 

are able to smite them, 
Ate is sent for by man, else even the Gods could 

not send her. 
What through man the divinities do, is also his 

doing. 
His is the deed, though the world is divine in 

which he can do it. 
But the one deity truly is thine, the God of the 

ages, 
All shall pass away, but He abideth forever, 
ileii- my prophecy, hear it and weigh it, con- 
cerning two poets 



194 HOMER IN CHIOS. 

Standino; in Chios and lookin2i; afar on the worlds 
in the sunset; 

One shall lift up the soul from below to the pres- 
ence immortal, 

And Avill quicken the heart to worship, unseen, 
the Eternal; 

But the other will show the trial and triumph of 
Heroes, 

Singing into his strains the homage undying of 
beauty. 

Both as brothers shall go down the echoing hall 
of the ages. 

Echoing double one voice from the heart of 
Greece and Judea. 

Two are the aisles in the temple of song, Hellenic, 
Hebraic, 

One is the harmony under them both, the har- 
mony human. 

Tuning to musical life the Man and the God in 
their struofgle." 

Slowly the poet of Hellas drew back to his seat 

in the settle, 
But his mind ran on in its might, though his body 

was Aveary, 
And he continued: "One thing more my si)irit 

must tell thee, 
Hear now my prayer, O David, and call it the 

prayer of Homer : 



THE PSALMIST OF ISRAEL. 195 

May the sou ever be a uiuch .better man than his 
father!" 

At the thought he suddenly turned and seemed 
to be looking, 

Though he was blind, he seemed to be lookino; and 
prying about him : 

*' But I forget ! I have a new pupil, where is he? 
Hesperion ? 

Where is Hesperion, dreamful youth of the neb- 
ulous Northland ? 

And I forget too my daughter, where is she? 
Praxilla? Praxilla? 

Surely to-day she is roaming, my daughter, my 
sunny Praxilla ! " 

In a moment the crowd was moving and turnino; 

and looking. 
All would peep at the pair whom the poet had 

coupled together ; 
What he had joined in his words, they surmised 

he had joined in his thoughts too, 
Every boy in the school surmised what was going 

to ha})peu, 
Every boy in the school blushed red as if he were 

guilty, 
Guilty of hiding away in his heart an arrow of 

Eros, 
Which had pricked him with jealousy's pang, 

though slyly secreted. 



196 HOMER IN CHIOS. 

First he peeped for bis rival, but found no reward 
for his peej^ing, 

Saw no Hesperion, dreamful youth of the neb- 
ulous Northland, 

Then he would speak in low tones to his neigh- 
bor, who had to make answer; 

Each was disguising the timorous thought that 
trembled within him, 

Each was telling it too just through his careful 
disguises ; 

Soon the whole school was a whisper, asking : 
Where is Praxilla? 

Soon the whole school was a whisper, replying. 
Where is Hesperion ? 

Crabbed Typtodes, the schoolmaster, still 

was present and looking, 
But he nowhere saw what he looked for, the 

daughter of Homer, 
Whom he too would see and would sue in spite 

of his wrinkles ; 
Teaching the verses of Homer, he weened he 

could teach the fair daughter. 
Writing Phoenician letters, he thought he would 

write her a poem. 
Vain is the effort, to-day he is wearied and 

worried with waiting ; 
In his sandals he shuffles along to the side of 

Mesander, 



THE PSAL31IST OF ISBAEL. 197 

Whom he somehow thinks to be kin to himself 

in the spirit ; 
Him he bespeaks on a point quite aloof from the 

way of the lover: 
*' Long you have dwelt in Phoenicia, you say, 

and know all its learning; 
Have you the songs set down in the signs of 

strange Alpha-Beta, 
Cunning symbols of speech, that fix the fleet 

breath of the singer?" 
"Yes," responded with joy the dexterous 

spokesman Mesander, 
" All have been set down in signs so that we 

can hear them forever 
Only by seeing them, look, the cunning Phoeni- 
cian symbols ! 
Thousands of years from now, yea, millions on 

millions of ages. 
Men will have but to look on these signs and will 

hear King David, 
Magical signs of the word, which make the good 

poem eternal. 
I have all of his songs scratched down on the 

folds of this scroll here." 

Lowering still his tone, Typtodes spoke to INIe- 
sander, 
Confidentially bending his head more near while 
speaking : 



11>8 HOMEB IN CHIOS. 

" I have noted it well ; while you talked, I peeped 

over your shoulder. 
But I must tell you a secret, which nobody knows 

of in Chios — 
Long I have wrought to set down in these signs 

the poems of Homer; 
What a task it has been — the burning by drops 

of my heart's blood! 
It' is done, but yesterday done, and to-day I have 

brought it, 
Hid in my bosom; toilsome the work but I felt 

it was worthy, 
Thouo;h I find fault with the failins-s of Homer 

and slash him to fragments; 
See ! I have poured out my life into writ, here 

it is, O Mesander — 
One small roll out of many, the rest I shall fetch 

from the school-house. 
One short day out of many, all which have sunk 

into Lethe." 
*' Surely no idler thou art," said the Greek 

from the island of Cyprus, 
And thou movest along with the world, the 

schoolmaster moves too. 
Spirit needeth the letter, the letter too needeth 

the spirit. 
Homer will last, but the pedagogue Chian will not 

be forgotten. 
Who was the first to put into script the song of 

the poet, 



THE r SAL MI ST OF ISRAEL. VM) 

Making him sing forever in spite of the Fates, 
the grim spinners." 

Both of the men had still something to say on 

the matter of letters. 
But they suddenly stopped when they heard the 

voice of the poet 
Not now chanting a musical strain to the Gods 

and the Heroes, 
But impatiently calling aloud, '*Hesperion! 

Praxilla!" 
Twice he repeated, "Where is Hesperion ! Where 

is my daughter? " 
" Here I am on this side," soon spake up the 

youth of the Northland, 
" Here I am on the other," responded the maiden 

Praxilla. 
Both of them spoke in their joy as they suddenly 

sprang from an arbor, 
Where they had hid from the crowd for a moment 

of sweet conversation, 
Words of the twain now blended toij-ether to 

tender est music, 
And their voice was wedded in love, preluding 

the marriage: 
" For thy blessing we come, thy blessing, O 

father Homerus." 

Then both kneeled at his side, brave youth and 
beautiful maiden. 



200 HOMEB IN CHIOS. 

"Rapid work, my children, too rapid, and yet 

I confirm it ! 
Who can catch and turn back in its flight the 

arrow of Eros? 
Well I foresaw what was coming, I knew in 

advance the whole story. 
Did you think because I was blind, I never could 

see you? 
All the while I could see you doing just what I 

intended. 
But enough ! You have my approval, take now 

my blessing !" 
Laying each hand on a head, he rose up with 

them together. 

Standing between the twain, once more spoke 

the poet to David : 
*' Thee I beseech, O Monarch, yet greater than 

Monarch, a Singer, 
Stay with me here, for to-morrow is given in 

marriage my daughter ; 
Go to rest in my chamber and wake up renewed 

in the morning, 
Both of us then shall sins; too-ether the song of 

the wedding. 
Ere we send off the pair to the distant forests of 

Northland. 
Thou must give them thy God, the One, and his 

high adoration, 
I shall show them the Man, the beautiful Man in 

his freedom." 



X. 



Wixunm. 

The Marriage, 



(201) 



AEGUMEN'T. 

All come together in the morning for the ^vedaing fes- 
tival of Hesperian and Praxilla. The scholars have a 
choral dance in horior of the event; Glaucus and Dem- 
odocus confess their great disappointment. Sa2)2^ho 
chants for the pair her last measures of love and good 
wishes. Typtodes brings as his bridal gift the poems 
of Homer written in the new alphabet. Homer and 
David give to the pair their blessing arid with it their tivo 
books, which are to be borne to the neiu home, ivhither 
the happy couple noio set forth on their journey. 



(202) 



Up rose the Sun in his car and lit the Ionian 
heavens, 

Driving the timorous Dawn far over the sea to the 
westward, 

Seeming to mount to the sky in flames that 
burst from his glances 

For some joy that he felt and imparted to earth 
and to ocean. 

Like a bridegroom he rose and put on his gar- 
ments of splendor, 

Gold he was strewing wherever he looked on the 
land and the water. 

Warm was the thrill as he reached from afar 
with his radiant fingers, 

Earth awoke at the touch and sprang up respond- 
ing in music, 

(203) 



204 HOMER IK CHIOS. 

Every creature was sir.ging, even still voices of 

nature 
Chanted the hymn of the Sun as he soared up 

the sky in the morning. 
Purple and scarlet and gold were his regal changes 

of raiment, 
Jewels he flung with his sheen in the lap of the 

beautiful island, 
Whicli peeped forth from the waves in a smile at 

the sport of the sunbeams, 
As from slumber it woke and lay on the bed of 

the billows. 
Chios he kissed in a rapture, as if his bride he 

were kissing, 
All the heart of the Sun was flowing to love and 



to marriage, 
glowed and h 
den of Homer. 



As he glowed and he glanced down into the gar- 



Both of the poets had risen from sleep, the 

Greek and the Hebrew, 
And were sitting together, in joy saluting the 

morning. 
Which from earth and from heaven returned the 

high salutation. 
"Beautiful is this world of Jehovah," shouted 

King David. 
" Praised be his name, for his law is the law which 

endureth forever." 



THE MABBIAGE. 205 

" Beautiful is this world of the Gods," responded 

Homcrus, 
" Beautiful too is the man, divinely upbearing his 

freedom." 

Thus they continued their talk, which ran of 

itself into measure, 
All of their speech was a song, and each of them 

sang to the other. 
Two were the strains on the tongue, yet both 

reached down to one kej-'-note. 
Skillful Mesander translated the twain and added 

his comment. 

Soon they all had gathered together with David 

and Homer, 
Hearing the note of the East and the West in the 

words of the masters. 
Lovely Sappho was present, the soft-speaking 

songstress of Lesbos, 
But she was silent, for eagerly now she heard the 

new message. 
Heard the voice of the law as it fell from the 

lips of the psalmist. 
Though she felt that the singer himself was not 

free of its judgment. 
Still in her thought she did not upbraid him who 

rose after falling. 
Nor condemn what her own tender heart had told 

her was human. 



206 HOMEB IN CHIOS. 

Shifty Typtodes, the pedagogue Chian, doth 

seem to be absent ; 
No, he is coming, yonder lie shuffles along in his 

sandals, 
He has set down the poems of Homer in symbols 

Phoenician, 
Though he won not the daughter, he must be a 

guest at her marriage. 
Look ! he hastes up the path, and carries the 

rolls of his paper, 
Rolls first made of the rind of the fen-born rush, 

the papyrus, 
On which is written the word of the poet for 

ages hereafter ; 
Book it is called, the scribbled peelings of rushes 

of Egypt. 

Next were seen the beautiful youths who sang 
in a chorus. 

Gracefully stepping along, attuning their dance 
to the song-beat, 

All the youths of the school were there arrayed 
for the wedding, 

Spotless they shone in white raiment falling in 
folds to their motion. 

From the East and the West they had come, all 
joined the procession. 

And they began the high song with a festal pray- 
er together, 



THE M ABB I AGE. 207 

Prayer beseechiug the presence divine of the 
God of Espousals: 

*' Hail Hymenieus, hail ! O come to the island 
of Chios, 

Come to the glorious island of song that is sing- 
ing thy praises ! 

Great is the need of thy presence to bless what 
is going to happen, 

For the lots of marriage are now to be drawn by 
a maiden, 

Rarest of maidens of Hellas, the beautiful daugh- 
ter of Homer. 

Be not absent, O deity, rule the caprices of 
Fortune ; 

Hail HymentEus, hail ! make the tie of the pair 
everlasting! " 

David the King drew near, and spake to the 

youth of the Northland, 
*' Speed thee afar to thy forests, and take this 

maiden Hellenic, 
Her thou must win to thy love, for thou never 

canst marry a Jewess, 
'Tis not allowed by the law — no hope thou canst 

have for my daughter. 
Whom I have left behind with the rest of the 

daughters of Israel ; 
These we keep to ourselves for the glory and 

praise of Jehovah. 



208 HOMEB IN CHIOS. 

But unrewarded thou shalt not pass from my 

presence this morning, 
All that is best of myself, whatever is good in 

my nation, 
I shall give as a present to thee and thy people 

forever. 
It shall attune thee anew to its song when thy 

soul is discordant, 
From thy fall it shall lift thee on high with fresh 

aspiration, 
It shall stead thee in trial the sorest, in death it 

shall stead thee. 
Now its words have been written in signs that 

came from Phoenicia, 
Musical sounds of the voice have been set down 

in signs for the vision 
On that Egyptian peel of a rush, called Byblus, 

the Bible. 
We have brought it along on our journey — 

Where is it, Mesander?" 

Here the translator suddenly stopped his talk- 
ing Hellenic, 

Spoke in Hebrew the word of reply which has 
not been translated. 

Takino; the folds of a curious roll written over 
with lettoj-s, 

Looking tlie look of a victor, he handed it soon 
to the Monarch. 



-^^ 



THE MABBIAQE. 209 

Meanwhile trembling in voice spake up good 

father Homerus, 
*' Now may life pass away, the end I have seen of 

my living; 
When his work has been done, not long the 

mortal will tarry ; 
More cannot fall to my lot, my hours henceforth 

are a passage ; 
After to-day I shall sing no more, the spirit 

refuses ; 
"Words cannot tell what I think, but bound the 

flight of my vision ; 
Life I have loved, for it was a deed, and it was a 

song too. 
But it is done, and the time draws near — the 

time of my silence. 
When the sound of my song will be but an echo 

repeating, 
Ever repeating the voice which I flung on the 

breezes of Hellas. 
Daughter, go ; I send thee far off to the folk of 

the Northland, 
Thither now bear my song, for it is my gift to 

the ages ; 
May thy children be heirs of the lay and the life 
of Greek Homer." 

Such were the words of the parent, and they 
were never forgotten. 
14 



210 HOMEB IN CHIOS. 

All of the company present were touched by the 

tone of Ihe farewell, 
For they seemed to hear the refrain of a lay in 

the distance, 
Giving a soft response from beyond to the note 

of the poet, 
Who was singing to-day the last, last strains of 

his swan-song. 

Hark to the bardlings ! a youth steps forth from 

the line of the chorus, 
With a discord in look and in heart — it was 

high-born Glaucus, 
Who from Lycia came, and now he sang to the 

maiden : 
" I have tried to win the hand of the daughter 

of Homer ; 
How I longed to carry her off to the banks of 

the Xanthus, 
Where is my sweet sunny home by the banks of 

the eddying Xanthus ! 
Honest my suit was to bear her away once more, 

the Greek Helen, 
Peacefully bring back the beautiful prize of the 

world into Asia; 
But I have lost, the Gods are against me, and 

turn from my people ; 
All I have lost, I must now see the bride borne 

off to the westward — 



THE MABRIAQE. 211 

I the son of King Glaucus, and grandson of 
Glauciis the Hero, 

I who am sprung far back of the seed of Bel- 
lerophontes — 

Hail, Hymeuseus, thy blessing upon the daugh- 
ter of Homer." 

Scarce had he ended, when from the opposite 

side of the chorus 
Stepped forth a youth of the West, in song and 

in love his great rival. 
It was Demodocus, son of Demodocus, Ithacan 

rhapsode : 
** I too sought for the hand of the beautiful 

daughter of Homer, 
From this isle I would bear her away to the 

home of Ulysses, 
Whence the old Greeks our fathers once came to 

the rescue of Helen. 
Great was the deed they did, the deed of the 

Greeks, our fathers! 
Beautiful Helen again I would rescue in fairest 

Praxilla, 
Coming over the sea from my home to the 

island of Chios. 
I have lost, let me go, I now shall become but a 

swineherd. 
Son unworthy of men who took the citadel 

Trojan. 



212 HOME It IN CHIOS. 

Hail, Hymeneeus, thy blessing upon the daughter 
of Homer." 

Forward came Sappho, the Lesbian songstress, 

the tenth among Muses, 
Grace she revealed in her form and her speech, 

the fourth among Graces, 
Aye tenth Muse of the Muses, and aye fourth 

Grace of the Graces, 
As she sang to the pair mid the sweet low tones 

of her cithern ; 
*' Hail, Hymeuoeus, hail ! make happy the 

bride and the bridegroom ! 
May the souls of the twain be one thought, the 

two lives be one living! 
Make the marriage a presence, which they shall 

dwell in forever. 
May the love of to-day be also the love of to- 
morrow ! 
You, O bride and bridegroom, you tool would 

move by my prayer; 
When you come to your home far over the border 

of Hellas, 
Sappho forget not, who was the first to join you 

together. 
Making the love of your hearts to flow in the 

strains of her music. 
Taking the hands of you both into hers and link- 
ing the promise. 



THE MAUBIAQE. 213 

Daughter of Homer and son of the Northland, 

remember the songstress, 
Sappho the Lesbian singing the love of the youth 

and the maiden, 
Hail, Hymenseus I make the bond of the lovers 

eternal ! ' ' 

Soon Typtodes stepped forth, in his hand were 

the rolls of his writing, 
Faithful he brought the work of his life as his 

gift at the nuptials, 
Though the beautiful daughter he won not with 

all of his wooing. 
But he hath his reward, his gift shall not be for- 
gotten. 
Gruffly with a grimace he muttered : Hail, Hy- 

mena?us ! 
Into the hand of the poet he put the magical 

symbols. 
Then he withdrew from the place — not the least 

was the schoolmaster's present ; 
As he passed out of sight, he flung down a tear 

on the gravel ; 
Once he looked back at his rolls, his life-task, 

sad at the parting. 

Then spake Homer, giving the pair his last bene- 
diction : 
** Here, take my book, now writ by Typtodes in 
letters Phoenician, 



214 HOMEli IN CHIOS. 

Keep it and let it still grow, one seed of your 
future existence, 

Showing the beautiful world of the Gods which 
arose in our Hellas, 

Showing what man must do with himself to build 
up a freeman." 
Then spake David, giving the pair his last ben- 
ediction : 

*' Here, take my book, it too is written in letters 
Phoenician, 

By some scribe — I know not his name — em- 
ployed in my household : 

Keep it and let it still grow, one seed of your 
future existence. 

Showing the law of the world proclaimed in the 
land of Judea, 

Showing the God, the one only God, and his 
worship in spirit." 
So to the Northland they took the two books 
of Homer and David, 

Oldest and newest, twin books of all time, the 
Greek and the Hebrew, 

Lovingly bore them afar to the West, the home 
of the nations. 

Which shall kindle the light in their hearts and 
carry it further, 

Where the two singers of Eld shall still sing daily 
their wisdom, 

Voices resounding in millions of echoes from let- 
ters Phoenician, 



THE MARRIAGE. 215 

Bringing their song to the present and handing it 

on to the future. 
Ever renewing their strains in the soul that is 

ready to hear them, 
Known far better hereafter than ever in Greece 

or Judea. 
Then the pair set out — Hesperion son of the >v 

NorthUind, 
And Praxilla, fair maiden of Hellas, the daughter 

of Homer, 
Quitting the garden where grew the orange, the 

fig and pomegranate. 
Where the hills were a flutter of leaves of the 

silvery olive. 
Soon they came to the shore, and there lay the 

boat of the bridal, 
Covered with branches and leaves, and decked 

with the flowers of Chios. 
Seamen raised up the mast and steadied it firmly 

with mainstays, 
Then they spread out the sails to the wind and 

took the direction. 
Oars they dipped in the brine, for trial made 

ready the rudder, 
And the God sent a favoring breeze which blew 

from the island, 
Yet a sigh mid the joy of the day it would 

whisper in snatches. 
" Farewell forever, Praxilla my daughter ! Fare- 
well Hesperion!" 



216 IIOMEB IN CHIOS. 

Light ran the ship as it cut with its keel 
through the billowy waters, 

Laughingly sparkled the sea in the stroke of the 
vigorous oarsmen, 

Over the rise and the fall of the ripples was rock- 
ing the vessel, 

Muffled sang the great deep, upheaving and bear- 
ing its burden. 

" Farewell forever, O Honier, my father! Fare- 
well O Hellas." 

From the sliore all the youths of the school 

were gazing in sorrow, 
Merrily still the vessel kept dancing away o'er 

the billow. 
That was the last day of school, the end had 

come of their training ; 
Long they looked at the boat until it had van- 
ished from vision, 
Looked in the blue at the sail till lost in the haze 

to the westward, 
Wondering whither it went and whether again 

they would see it. 
When the small white speck of the ship had 

twinkled to nothing, 
Longing the scholars turned for the sight and the 

speech of the poet, 
But he was not to be seen, he had gone to his 

home with King David. 
Soon they too had dispersed, each went his own 

way to his country. 



THE MARRIAGE. 217 

Still the lovers sailed on far away from the gar- 
dens of Chios, 

Onward they went in their joy, behind them leav- 
ing the islands, 

Over the deep they sailed and came to the shore 
of the mainland. 

Quitting the ship and the sea, they plunged into 
forest and desert, 

Into the dangers of land far greater than perils 
of water. 

Fleeting across the wintery border of beauti- 
ful Hellas, 

Where it stretches beyond the abode of the Gods 
on Olympus, 

To the regions where drinking their whey dwell 
the mare-milking Thracians, 

Over the hills and the valleys away to the banks 
of a river. 

To the stream that is bearing the flood of the 
wide-whirling Istros, 

Still beyond and beyond, still over the plain and 
the mountain, 

Over vast lands to the seas, and over the seas to 
the lands still, 

Throuo-h the iciclcd forests, through the tracts 
of the frost-fields, 

Still beyond and beyond, still over the earth and 
its circles. 

Onward they passed, the daughter of Homer and 
son of the Northland — 



218 HOMER IN CHIOS. 

Further and further they went, till they came to 

the homes of his people, 
Bringing two books in their journey, the gifts of 

David and Homer, 
Brino-ino; two songs of the sunrise to sins; to the 

hinds of the sunset, 
Songs still singing of God in his foresight and 

Man in his freedom, 
Where the huge arms of the breakers are smiting 

the shores of the Ocean, 
Ever beyond and beyond in the stretch of their 

strokes they are striking. 
Striking the barrier of earth in the stress of their 

strong aspiration. 
Beating, forever repeating, the strokes of the in- 
finite Ocean. 



